Councils Spend £100m Helping Renters Hit By Benefit Cuts

Local authorities across Britain spent almost £100m last year making up the rents of families affected by the bedroom tax and benefit cap, official figures have revealed. Just over £14m was spent helping renters whose finances had been reined in by the £500-a-week benefit cap, while £83.5m was spent making up the rents of people whose benefits had been cut by what the government terms “the removal of the spare room subsidy”. In England where extra funds were not on offer, 140 councils also spent all of or more than their entire Discretionary Housing Payments allocation including a handful which spent nearly twice as much. Read more on the Welfare Weekly website.