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Housing Benefit

Volume 448: debated on Thursday 6 July 2006

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much has been spent on housing benefit in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. (79533)

Local authority Housing Benefit expenditure; Great Britain.£1996-976,461,567,4211997-986,382,935,803 1998-996,454,971,7671999-20006,609,544,8762000-016,800,139,2262001-027,252,541,165 2002-038,279,956,6082003-048,212,197,616 2004-0513,146,385,061 Note: 1. From 2004-05, the DWP expenditure includes £4,157,388, 700 HRA rent rebates; HRA for previous years was paid by DCLG. 2. Figures are reported expenditure by local authorities and not DWP subsidy expenditure. 3. Figures are nominal amounts. Source: Local authority reported expenditure.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the cost of housing benefit (a) overpayments and (b) fraud was to Luton Council in each of the last five years. (80369)

The available information is in the table.

Overpayments and recoveries by Luton Council, 2004-05

£

Value of overpayments identified by Luton Council

Subsidy paid by DWP to Luton council (40 per cent. of overpayments identified)

Net cost to Luton council before recovery

Recovered by Luton council

Net cost after recovery

986,776

394,710

592,066

1,007,423

-415,357

Notes: 1. A negative amount implies a surplus. 2. The cost of overpayments is calculated first from the difference between the value of overpayments identified due to fraud and claimant error, and the subsidy received by Luton council for these overpayments. This value minus any overpayments subsequently recovered from claimants or landlords is presented here as the net cost after recovery. Administrative costs, such as those for fraud teams and for recovering overpayments, have not been included in this answer. 3. The amount recovered by Luton council in 2004-05 includes overpayments identified in earlier years.

Information is not available on local authority performance in respect of the level of Housing Benefit fraud present in their caseload, since it is not possible to robustly estimate the amount of undetected fraud and error at a local authority level.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much was spent on housing benefit for tenants in (a) council property, (b) housing association property, (c) registered social landlord property and (d) private sector housing in Tamworth constituency in each of the last three years. (80135)

Information is not available broken down by constituency. Information cannot be broken down by landlord type other than by council or private tenancies. The latter includes housing associations and registered social landlords. The available DWP information for Tamworth borough council is in the table.

Housing benefit expenditure in Tamworth borough council.£Expenditure in council propertyExpenditure in all private propertyAll housing benefit expenditure2002-03237,0003,824,0004,061,0002003-04138,0003,866,0004,004,0002004-057,318,0004,027,00011,345,000Notes: 1. Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand pounds. Totals may not sum due to rounding. 2. There are issues still to be resolved in the 2004-05 claim and therefore the figures for this year are subject to change 3. From 2004-05, the DWP expenditure includes £7,086,780 HRA Rent Rebates; HRA for previous years was paid by DCLG. 4. Figures are reported expenditure by local authorities and not DWP subsidy expenditure. 5. Figures are nominal amounts. Source: Audited subsidy claims submitted by local authority