Collection

Housing Benefit for local authorities: subsidy circulars

Subsidy (S) circulars are about the money the government pays local authorities to administer Housing Benefit and other financial matters.

Housing Benefit subsidy (S) circulars give information about:

  • the money the government pays local authorities in the form of a subsidy to administer Housing Benefit
  • other financial matters for local authority staff

The circulars make many references to Council Tax Benefit as this was administered by local authorities alongside Housing Benefit until March 2013. In April 2013 Council Tax Benefit was replaced by local authorities’ own council tax support and reduction schemes, removing DWP’s involvement. Readers will need to consider references to Council Tax Benefit in these documents accordingly.

For enquiries about the distribution of circulars, email: housing.correspondenceandpqs@dwp.gsi.gov.uk.

Other information for local authorities about Housing Benefit

We also publish:

Subsidy circulars

Find HB subsidy circulars before 2011 on the National Archives website.

Updates to this page

Published 17 October 2013
Last updated 24 February 2023 + show all updates
  1. Added Housing Benefit subsidy circulars 2023.

  2. Added 2022 subsidy circulars page to the collection.

  3. Added 'Housing Benefit subsidy circulars 2021'.

  4. Published HB Subsidy Circular S4/2015: Additional funding to meet the costs of implementing welfare reform changes in 2015/16.

  5. Published HB Subsidy Circular S3/2015: Fraud and Error Reduction Incentive Scheme 2015/16 funding.

  6. Added HB Subsidy Circular S1/2015: Discretionary Housing Payments government contribution for tax year 2015 to 2016.

  7. Published HB Subsidy Circular S11/2014 about Real Time Information bulk data matching initiative compensation payments for local authorities.

  8. Published HB Subsidy Circular S10/2014: Fraud and Error Reduction Incentive Scheme funding.

  9. Added circular S9/2014: Payment of New Burdens relating to the Single Fraud Investigation Service for 2014/15.

  10. Added circulars S6/2014 - Scotland and S7/2014 - Wales.

  11. First published.