Official Statistics

Background information and methodology: use of Discretionary Housing Payments statistics

Published 16 December 2021

Applies to England and Wales

1. Introduction

These Official Statistics are published biannually and give a summary of Local Authority (LA) expenditure on Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs). These statistics have not been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority and have not been designated as National Statistics.

The department requires that LAs provide details of their DHP expenditure for financial accounting purposes. LAs are legally required to provide this. From this year, LAs are specifically required to provide an estimate of their expenditure for the first half of the financial year.

LAs are also asked to provide voluntary ‘monitoring’ information, twice a year to provide further details about their use of DHP funding.

In previous years, LAs provided financial information and monitoring information on separate returns. For this statistical release, LAs completed a combined return, which asks for both the legally required financial information and the voluntary monitoring information on the same return. This return asks, for the first time, for an estimate of mid-year expenditure, as noted above. This statistical release presents a summary of these returns. It covers the first half of the financial year ending March 2022.

The statistics are released as part of a series of Discretionary Housing Payment statistics.

2. Methodology

As described above, these statistics are based on returns from LAs that ask for mandatory financial information and voluntary monitoring information. The financial information is legally required for accounting purposes and details how much of the government contribution towards DHPs LAs have spent for the first half of the financial year (including any additional expenditure above the government contribution). The analysis of this data focuses on comparing total spend against central government allocations.

Any comparison of expenditure across years should be treated with caution as the government contribution to DHPs differs year to year. Additionally, in 2021 to 2022, LAs were given their allocation in two parts: one at the start of the financial year, the other halfway through the financial year. This may have affected their spending.

By a deadline of 15 November 2021, 315 out of 331 LAs had submitted a return. All of these returns included an estimate of DHP expenditure. The department is contacting the remaining LAs in order to obtain information about expenditure.

These statistics are also based on monitoring information, which gives further details of LA expenditure on DHPs by splitting the spend by the purpose for which the DHP was awarded and the welfare reform (if any) with which it was associated.

Because the monitoring information is voluntary, not all LAs provide it, and some LAs do not supply all the information requested. This means that some LAs may provide a split by welfare reform, but not by purpose of the DHP.

Of the 315 LAs that submitted returns by our deadline of 15 November 2021, 302 provided a breakdown of expenditure by welfare reform whilst 285 provided a breakdown of expenditure by purpose of DHP.

When we gather returns, we perform various checks to assess whether they are accurate. For example, we check against the previous year’s figures. We also check any results that look too big or too small. We then query any results that appear to be inaccurate with the LA.

That said, the statistics rely on the accuracy of the returns. Although we believe they give an accurate overall picture, it is likely that smaller errors remain even after the quality checks above.

When LAs provide data on the number of awards, there may be some differences between LAs in the way awards are counted. For example, if the amount of a DHP award changed, some LAs may count this as a new DHP award, whereas some may count it as the same award. We do query awards figures with LAs that are inconsistent with other data they provide, but caution should be taken when comparing the number of awards reported by individual LAs

3. Changes for this release

Financial information table

Because LAs are now required to provide an estimate of their expenditure at the midpoint of the financial year, this enables us to provide data on total (estimated) expenditure in these mid-year statistics. To show this, we have included a financial information table, as we do in the end-of-year publication. The sum of expenditure by welfare reform category in the monitoring information table may not sum to the total expenditure figure given in the financial information table. 315 LAs provided a total expenditure figure in time for publication, compared to 302 that provided expenditure by welfare reform category.

DHP expenditure compared with DHP allocation by reform measure table

This publication removes the data table which compares the DHP expenditure associated with each welfare reform to the funding allocated in relation to each welfare reform. This is because of the allocation methodology for 2021 to 2022, which means it is not possible to give exact figures for the amount allocated to each LA by welfare reform. There are two specific reasons for this: first, when the first part of the funding (£100m) was allocated, this was done by reducing the previous year’s allocation rather than by welfare reform; secondly, when money was deducted from underspending LAs and redistributed to others, this was done without reference to welfare reforms.

4. Trustworthiness and quality

As described above, this publication is based on information provided by LAs. While some quality checks are conducted, the results are not verified in detail.

Any discrepancies were queried with LAs and any resubmissions of corrected returns received by 15 November 2021 were accepted and included in the analysis. No results were altered without the explicit consent of the submitting LA.

5. Definitions

5.1. Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS)

In April 2013 the RSRS policy came into effect. This policy applies to working age social rented sector Housing Benefit and Universal Credit claimants (pensioner households are exempt). Where claimants are deemed to occupy more bedrooms than they need, as defined by the social sector size criteria, they are subject to a weekly reduction in the eligible rent used to assess their housing benefit.

5.2. Benefit Cap

Rolled out from April 2013 and fully implemented from September 2013, the Benefit Cap is a limit on the total amount of benefit that most working age households can receive. Since November 2016 the maximum amount couples and households with children can receive is £20,000 a year (£23,000 in Greater London) and £13,400 a year (£15,410 in Greater London) for single person households.

5.3. Local Housing Allowance reforms

Tenants who rent from a private landlord and receive housing benefit or Universal Credit Housing Allowance generally have their claim assessed under the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rules. These determine the maximum amount payable in a given area depending on the household characteristics of the claimant. Reforms to the LHA system since April 2011 have generally restricted the eligible rent that can be met through Housing Benefit and Universal Credit.

6. Useful links

Publication page for this background document, the statistics release and supporting tables.

Information on Official Statistics is available on the UK Statistics Authority website.

Read information about statistics at DWP.

7. Contact information

Media enquiries: Telephone: 0203 267 5144

Responsible Analyst: Graham Walmsley
Email: graham.walmsley1@dwp.gov.uk

Author: Laura Parkhurst
Email: laura.parkhurst@dwp.gov.uk