Explainers

Discretionary Housing Payments

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) have been devolved since April 2017 and provide additional support with housing costs to people on low incomes who are receiving Housing Benefit, or Universal Credit with a housing costs element.

Payments are administered by Local Authorities, but most of the funding comes from Scottish Government. Our forecasts only cover the spending by the Scottish Government and do not include any payments that Local Authorities fund from other sources.

The Scottish Government has committed to fully fund mitigation of bedroom tax and Benefit Cap deductions, so we forecast how much Local Authorities will pay out for these reasons.

The Scottish Government also allocates a budget for ‘other DHPs’ to Local Authorities to cover payments made for any other reason. We do not assess the demand or need for these payments, and include this in our forecasts at a level of £7.9 million for 2023-24 onwards based on Scottish Government plans.