Number of awards made by Local Authorities for Discretionary Housing Payments.
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Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are administered in Scotland by the 32 Scottish Local Authorities. DHPs may be awarded when a Local Authority considers that a housing benefit or universal credit (including the housing element) claimant requires further financial assistance towards housing costs. DHPs can be used to provide support to claimants affected by some of the key welfare reforms, including the introduction of benefit cap, the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy in the social rented sector (“RSRS”, also known as the “bedroom tax”) and reductions in Local Housing Allowance.
As of April 2017, full responsibility for DHPs has been transferred to the Scottish Government and the Department for Work and Pensions no longer provides any funding. Scottish Government allocates funding for DHPs to each Local Authority, and Local Authorities are also free to provide additional funding from their own resources.
These annual DHP statistics cover the period from 1 April to 31 March each financial year.
A determination is the decision taken on a Discretionary Housing Payment application to either make an award, or not to make an award.
To check the quality of the data we receive, we compare the responses to the above questions with the responses given the month before. We would normally expect the number of applications, determinations, awards and total value of awards to increase each month. Where this is not the case, we contact the Local Authority and query their responses.
For some local authorities, the number of applications is lower than the number of determinations or awards. These Local Authorities may have reporting systems and processes set up so that a single application can have multiple determinations and awards attached to it, because a new application is not required for every financial year. This typically reflects Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (“RSRS”, also known as the “bedroom tax”) cases where awards have been extended from the previous year, but for which no new applications have been required by the Local Authority. Additionally some of the determinations made may have been on applications which commenced prior to 1 April each year. In the 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2015/2015 publications, the number of applications was adjusted upwards for local authorities where there were fewer applications than determinations or awards. From the 2016/2017 publication onwards, we have reported the original number of applications submitted to the statistics branch by each Local Authority, even if there are fewer applications than determinations and awards. This way of reporting is more reliable as it does not require an estimate of the number of applications rolling on from the previous year. Further, it enables these Local Authorities to more accurately check their figures.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes statistics on Discretionary Housing Payments. The most recent statistics cover DHPs in England and Wales only. Previous versions of the statistics up until March 2017 cover DHPs in Great Britain.
Annual statistics are updated once a year in May following the end of the financial year in March. We also publish statistics in November covering the first half of the financial year.
Not applicable
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A linked data-orientated view of dimensions and values
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Reference Area
http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/dimension#refArea
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(not locked to a value) |
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Reference Period
http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/dimension#refPeriod
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(not locked to a value) |
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Measure Type
http://purl.org/linked-data/cube#measureType
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(not locked to a value) |
Linked Data is stored in graphs. We keep dataset contents (the data) separately from the metadata, to make it easier for you to find exactly what you need.
The data in this dataset are stored in the graph: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/discretionary-housing-payments-awards
The data structure definition for this data cube dataset is stored in the same graph as the data: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/discretionary-housing-payments-awards
All other metadata about this dataset are stored in the graph: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/discretionary-housing-payments-awards/metadata
A breakdown by type of the 371 resources in this dataset's data graph.
| Resource type | Number of resources |
|---|---|
| Collection | 2 |
| Component specification | 5 |
| Data set | 1 |
| Data structure definition | 1 |
| Observation | 362 |
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