Agenda item

That the policy for Discretionary Housing Payments as set out in Appendix A to the report be approved.

The Director of Finance & Resources introduced a report that sought approval for the policy for Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) for the 2018/19 financial year.

Payments were awarded by the Council to provide further financial assistance outside of Housing Benefit and Universal Credit to help eligible people meet their housing costs.  In recent years the Government had increased its grants to the Council to fund the payments following welfare changes, however, the grant for 2018/19 was £649,394 which was £111,177 lower than for 2017/18.  The Council proposed to continue to maintain spend within the grant allocation to avoid putting any further pressure on the revenue budget.

The Cabinet had some concerns that the roll out of Universal Credit in Slough could lead to an increase in demand for DHP and agreed that it was important that the Council was able to respond if necessary.  The Director responded that demand would be closely monitored and a report would come back to Cabinet if it was considered that a proposal for further resources was required.

Resolved –  That the policy for Discretionary Housing Payments as set out in Appendix A to the report be approved.