Discretionary Housing Payments Update

The Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) have released the figures for the government contribution and overall spending limits for DHPs for 2009/10.

Here's a quote from the preamble in the circular;

"4 For 2009/10, the overall financial limit has been set at £50m, of which £20m is made up of the government contribution. This means the amounts remain unchanged from 2008/09.

5 The distribution formula is intended, as far as possible, to target resources according to need. Each authority’s allocation is based on the mid-point between its DHP spend for the latest year for which we have reliable data and its contribution for that year."

This confirms therefore my earlier post where I said that if you don't use it you lose it and, sure as eggs are eggs Nottingham's government contribution and overall spending limit has gone down to £59645 (down from £62547) and £149113 (down from £156,292) respectively.

As you can see, this year the total expemditure on DHPs has been frozen at the same rate as last years thus making things worse. Other local authorities who manage their expenditure more generously (yet may not have as much deprivation as Nottingham) are gaining money that should be heading Nottingham's way.

Personally, I'm not very happy with that. Not that others are getting more cash per se, good luck to em I say, just that Nottingham's losses have been amplified by the City Council's incompetance.

Update; link to the circular here.

On the bright side the DWP has announced an extra £45m nationally for mainstream Housing Benefit subsidy for next year and Nottingham's share of this is £289,099. However Leicester is being allocated an extra £293,574. The increase has apparently been based on existing subsidy formulae which I'm afraid I know nothing about so I can't explain why Leicester seems to deserve more. Maybe a bit of research is in order but not now, its a bit late.

Earlier post onDHPs