The £155m Hardship Fund That Local Councils Fail To Spend

Welfare cuts have taken £2.6bn out of communities, yet councils routinely fail to spend a meagre £155m pot designed to cover the shortfall. The council-run hardship fund, the government calls discretionary housing payments, has proven a good enough shield from the harmful financial hits of welfare reforms, the work and pension secretary has argued. Despite claims the £155m fund would be woefully inadequate to prevent the damage caused by £2.6bn of cuts, Iain Duncan Smith said most authorities spent less than half their budgets in the six months following the introduction of the bedroom tax and other reductions in April 2013. Some councils, such as Manchester and Nottingham, spent less than a third. With these signs of the safety net's strength, critics should be wary of "making political capital" from human tragedy, he warned. Read more on the Guardian website.