Benefits and support The benefits service: our data

Discretionary Housing Payments, welfare reform, and caseload information

Discretionary housing payments

We receive an annual grant from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to fund Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) to top up Housing Benefit where appropriate. Any of the grant not spent is returned to DWP.

2024/25
The total grant this year from DWP was £1,396,135. Any amount that has been awarded above that was paid by the Council out of the General Fund. The figures shown below for each quarter are cumulative.

Discretionary Housing Payment entitlement by ward and tenure

Discretionary Housing Payments - expenditure in previous years

Look at how Discretionary Housing Payments have been used nationally on GOV.UK

Welfare reform

Under-occupation

Housing Benefit for council tenants and housing association tenants of working age is reduced if they are considered to have more bedrooms than they need. This is widely known as 'the bedroom tax' though it is a reduction of benefit rather than a tax we issue bills for.

The dwindling caseload is partly the result of claimants moving from Housing Benefit (HB) to Universal Credit (UC). The UC housing element is reduced in the same way as for HB but numbers affected are unknown.

Under-occupied cases getting Discretionary Housing Payment split by landlord

Under-occupied cases getting Discretionary Housing Payment split by ward

Under-occupation data for earlier years

Look at the national under-occupation statistics on GOV.UK

Benefit cap

The total amount of benefit that most working-age people can get is capped - you can't get more benefit than the amount set by the government.

The current level of benefit cap is £423.46 a week (£283.71 for single people without children). This amount has applied since April 2023.

Numbers of cases are now dwindling as claimants move from Housing Benefit to Universal Credit, with DWP applying the benefit cap instead. UC figures are rounded to nearest 10 and published several months after the end of the quarter.

Housing Benefit claimants by ward and housing sector whose benefit is capped

Benefit cap data for earlier years

Benefit Cap - national statistics broken down by local authority

Caseload

Information about the benefits service caseload broken down into each type of case per quarter

Quarterly numbers of working-age Council Tax Support claimants by ward and band

Quarterly numbers of non-working-age Council Tax Support claimants by ward and band

Caseload data for earlier years

Look at national caseload statistics on GOV.UK