Official Statistics

Use of Discretionary Housing Payments: analysis of end-of-year returns from local authorities, data for April 2024 to March 2025

Published 10 July 2025

Applies to England and Wales

1. Main stories

Here are the main headlines about the use of Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) for the financial year ending March 2025 based on information received from 317 Local Authorities in England and Wales:

• in the financial year ending March 2025, local authorities had spent 107% of their combined allocations for the year, compared to 112% in the previous financial year ending March 2024
• DHP spending varied between local authorities, with 18% of local authorities spending less than 95% of their allocation, 56% of local authorities spending between 95% to 105% of their allocation and 26% of local authorities spending over 105% of their allocation
• for the 307 local authorities that submitted awards data, the total number of DHP awards given out in the financial year ending March 2025 was 146,870
• 61% of DHP expenditure was attributed to a welfare reform, with Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy accounting for the greatest share of expenditure (24%)
• over a quarter (30%) of DHP expenditure was related to moving accommodation, while 12% was used for short-term rental costs while the claimant seeks employment

2. What you need to know

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) can be paid to those entitled to Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs. Local authorities have broad discretion to spend in line with their local priorities. This includes deciding how much will be paid and the length of the award. A DHP can be awarded to cover a rent shortfall, a rent deposit, rent in advance, or other costs associated with moving.

The government provides funding to local authorities for DHPs. For the financial year ending March 2025, the Government provided £100m of funding. In addition to the government contribution, local authorities can top up DHP funding up to a maximum of two and half times this figure using their own funds.

LAs are encouraged to manage their DHP budget, the level of DHP spending does not necessarily reflect the level of demand for DHPs.

These statistics cover the financial year ending March 2025. The findings are based on returns from 317 out of 318 local authorities.

Further guidance on these statistics is provided in the “More information” section of this publication and in the background information and methodology document.

3. How much of their DHP funding did local authorities spend?   

In the financial year ending March 2025, the local authorities who provided information had spent £106m on DHPs which represents 107% of their combined allocations. This compares to the previous financial year ending March 2024, where local authorities spent £112m on DHPs which represented 112% of combined allocations. Caution should be taken when comparing expenditure to previous years as different local authorities responded in each year.

Welsh local authorities who provided information had spent 110% of their combined allocation, which is a higher proportion than that spent by reporting English local authorities (106%).

The local authorities that provided information for number of awards, made 146,870 awards to claimants in the financial year ending March 2025. For the 307 local authorities that provided this information, the total expenditure on DHPs was £105m. While this suggests that the average DHP award was £722, this figure should be treated with caution, since there are a variety of different types of DHP awards (for example, a single DHP award to cover a deposit is likely to have a different value to a DHP award paid on a weekly or monthly basis).

Over half of local authorities spent between 95% to 105% of their allocation

Local authorities varied in the proportion of their DHP allocation that they had spent, with 18% of Local authorities spending less than 95% of their allocation and 26% spending over 105%. Over half (56%) of local authorities spent between 95% and 105% of their allocated funding: that is, they spent broadly in line with their allocated funding. In the previous financial year, the pattern of spending showed local authorities spending a higher proportion of their allocated funding: 14% of local authorities who responded had spent less than 95% of their allocation, while 35% had spent over 105%.

Almost 4 in 10 reporting local authorities spent between 99% and 101% of their allocation

When looking more closely at local authorities that spent between 95% and 105% of their allocations, 117 of them spent more than 99% and less than or equal to 101% (i.e. very close to 100% of their allocation). This is 37% of all local authorities that provided a return. Of these, 38 local authorities reported spending exactly the same as their allocation.

Local authorities in West Midlands spent the highest proportion of their combined allocations, while local authorities in North East spent the least

There was some variation in the proportion of combined allocation spent by region, with local authorities in West Midlands spending the greatest proportion of their combined allocations (114%) and local authorities in North East spending the least (101%).

In the previous financial year ending March 2024, local authorities in Wales had spent the greatest proportion of their combined allocations (127%) with local authorities in London spending the lowest proportion (107%).

4. How much was spent on each welfare reform   

61% of DHP expenditure was related to welfare reforms

61% of DHP expenditure was recorded as related to welfare reforms, Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS) recorded as being responsible for the largest proportion of DHP expenditure (24%), followed by Local Housing Allowance (LHA; 22%) and Benefit Cap (9%), with 7% of expenditure being used on a combination of welfare reforms. Over a third (39%) of DHP expenditure was reported as unrelated to welfare reforms.

In the previous financial year, a similar proportion (63%) of DHP expenditure was recorded as being related to welfare reforms.

5. What DHPs were awarded for

Over a quarter (30%) of expenditure was related to moving to alternative accommodation

12% of DHP expenditure was related to short term rental costs while the claimant sought employment and 3% of expenditure was related to on-going rental costs for disabled person in adapted accommodation, while <1% went towards ongoing rental costs for foster carers.

Over half (57%) of DHP expenditure was given to ongoing rental costs for any other reason. This is similar to  the percentage reported in the previous financial year ending March 2024 (58%).

6. More information

DHP Government Funding

Total DHP funding for the financial year ending March 2025 is £100m. Funding for DHPs has historically been split into four streams (Core, Local Housing Allowance, Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy and Benefit Cap) for DWP’s calculation purposes, although local authorities are not required to take account of these streams in allocating their funding. More information about funding levels over time can be found in table 1 in the data tables document of this statistics release. 

Welfare Reforms

Since 2011, the Government increased its contribution to DHPs so that local authorities can support those affected by the Benefit Cap, Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy and reforms to the Local Housing Allowance. The background information and methodology document provides more detail.

Data Source

At the midpoint and end of each financial year, local authorities provide details of their DHP expenditure for financial accounting purposes, which they are legally required to do. 317 local authorities provided this information in time for inclusion within these statistics. Of these 317 local authorities, 307 gave information about the number of DHP awards they gave out in the financial year.

In addition to financial information, local authorities are also asked, at the mid-point and end of each financial year, to provide additional monitoring information. Not all local authorities supply some or all of the monitoring information requested. Of the 317 local authorities that submitted a return, 303 provided a breakdown of expenditure by welfare reform and 299 provided a breakdown of expenditure by purpose of DHP. More information about both the financial information and monitoring information provided in returns can be found in the background information and methodology document.

Release Schedule

These Official Statistics are released biannually. This current statistical release presents a summary of the end-of-year claim forms that include both financial and monitoring information. They cover the financial year ending March 2025.

The next release in this series will be based on mid-year monitoring and financial returns covering April 2025 to September 2025. It will be published in December 2025.

Status

These statistics have not been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority and have not been designated as National Statistics.

7. Where to find out more

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

Information about Discretionary Housing Payments, including how to claim them, can be found on the Discretionary Housing Payments page.

8. Contact information

Media enquiries

For media enquiries please contact the DWP press office.

Statistics enquiries

We are only able to reply to questions about the statistics.

Responsible Analyst: Katie Wilkinson
Email: katie.wilkinson1@dwp.gov.uk

Author: Chloe Lorimer
Email: chloe.lorimer@dwp.gov.uk

Published 10 July 2025

Next edition December 2025