Section 10: Administration costs
Published 15 February 2019
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Introduction
1400. Authorities were notified of their Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) Housing Benefit (HB) administration subsidy allocation before the start of the relevant year. The overall DWP HB administration subsidy is cash-limited and there is no provision for any adjustment to be made to individual local authority (LA) allocations. The DWP HB administration subsidy distribution for the relevant year is shown at Appendix D.
1401-1409.
Details of the DWP administration subsidy distribution in the relevant year
1410. For 2018 to 2019 the total distributed amount of administration subsidy for HB is £216.81 million (rounded). Appendix D shows the individual allocations for each LA in England, Scotland and Wales.
1411. This funding was calculated by applying a flat rate efficiency saving reduction (applied after Universal Credit reduction) to the 2017 to 2018 HB administration subsidy, which is consistent with DWPs’ baseline funding.
Universal Credit roll out
1412. For 2018 to 2019, the HB administration subsidy funding took into account the revised November 2017 Universal Credit roll out schedule. The Universal Credit reduction of £5.894 million (rounded) was deducted from the total amount of the 2018 to 2019 HB administration subsidy for Great Britain. This was in addition to the £11.3 million previously deducted from the 2017 to 2018 HB administration subsidy funding.
1413. The Universal Credit reduction is profiled across a number of financial years. The 2018 to 2019 Universal Credit reduction takes into account the November 2017 Autumn Budget and Universal Credit announcements, along with a review of the reduction in the Universal Credit business case.
Distribution methodology
1414. For 2018 to 2019, the HB administration subsidy was based on the 2017 to 2018 allocation and applied the HB caseload estimates used in the 2017 to 2018 allocations, before any Universal Credit reduction or efficiency reduction was applied.
1415. The Universal Credit reductions were calculated using total expected Universal Credit reduction up to 2018 to 2019. These were based on the estimated individual LA’s share of the expected national reduction in the HB working caseload.
1416. A flat rate reduction was then applied across all LA allocations, in line with the departmental efficiency savings. Allocations were then rounded to the nearest pound.
1417-1420.
Payments of subsidy
1421. Payments of interim HB administration subsidy will be made in 12 monthly instalments beginning in April. The overall grant available to support HB administration costs is cash limited and so there is no provision for any adjustments to be made to individual authority’s allocations.
1422-1429.
Queries
1430. If you have any queries concerning the content of this section: