Housing Benefit
(asked on 4th June 2014) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the value of the average claim for housing benefit made by those (a) out of work, (b) self-employed and (c) employed was in each of the last five years.
The available information is in the following tables:
Table 1: Housing Benefit recipients by employment status: Great Britain, 2009/10 to 2013/14
Caseload (thousands)1 | In employment | Not in employment | Total | Proportion in employment | |
Receiving means-tested out of work benefits | Not receiving means-tested out of work benefits (pensioners and other working age) | ||||
September 2009 | 527 | 2,067 | 1,944 | 4,539 | 11.6% |
September 2010 | 702 | 2,142 | 1,953 | 4,797 | 14.6% |
September 2011 | 835 | 2,174 | 1,925 | 4,934 | 16.9% |
September 2012 | 934 | 2,227 | 1,880 | 5,041 | 18.5% |
September 2013 | 1,019 | 2,192 | 1,811 | 5,022 | 20.3% |
Table 2: Average Housing Benefit award by employment status: Great Britain, 2009/10 to 2013/14
£ per week | In employment | Not in employment | Total | |
Receiving means-tested out of work benefits | Not receiving means-tested out of work benefits (pensioners and other working age) | |||
September 2009 | 76.54 | 92.01 | 71.62 | 81.58 |
September 2010 | 84.68 | 94.06 | 73.54 | 84.42 |
September 2011 | 86.92 | 96.08 | 76.64 | 87.01 |
September 2012 | 87.75 | 97.55 | 80.19 | 89.32 |
September 2013 | 89.51 | 95.87 | 82.64 | 89.87 |
Table 3: Housing Benefit Outturn expenditure by employment status: Great Britain, 2009/10 to 2013/14
£ million, real terms (2014/15 prices) | In employment | Not in employment | Total | |
Receiving means-tested out of work benefits | Not receiving means-tested out of work benefits (pensioners and other working age) | |||
2009/10 | 2,591 | 11,208 | 8,275 | 22,074 |
2010/11 | 3,438 | 11,460 | 8,161 | 23,060 |
2011/12 | 4,092 | 11,667 | 8,257 | 24,016 |
2012/13 | 4,558 | 11,965 | 8,335 | 24,858 |
2013/14 | 4,958 | 11,383 | 8,122 | 24,462 |
Source: Single Housing Benefit Extract (SHBE) and local authority subsidy returns
It is important to note that the increase in the Housing Benefit caseload in employment is driven by a number of factors, including:
- The overall increase in the number of households renting, whether or not in receipt of Housing Benefit
- Recession-related impacts such as previously unemployed HB claimants moving into work and losing eligibility to passported benefits but continuing to claim HB, where as a consequence of the complexity of the benefit system it is possible that in some cases these households may not have made a claim for HB had they not had a spell on out-of-work benefits. A key feature of Universal Credit is its smoothing of this type of transition.
The information requested for those who are self-employed is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Information on numbers in employment do not include those Housing Benefit recipients whose claim is passported: that is those receiving Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance (Income-Based), Employment and Support Allowance (Income-Based), or Pension Credit (Guaranteed Credit). This is unlikely to have a significant impact on the trends shown in the tables.
Notes:
- In employment expenditure is based on instances where either the claimant or their partner has recorded earnings (which could be part-time or full-time) including pensioners, estimated using administrative data from Local Authority systems.
- A small number of claimants on passported benefits who receive Housing Benefit may also be working, or have a working partner. These claimants are not identified in the data.
- “Out of work benefits” refer to Income Support, income-based Jobseekers Allowance and income-based Employment Support Allowance.
- Annual expenditure is calculated using quarterly averages of claimant numbers and claim amounts, aligned to out-turn expenditure from local authority subsidy returns.
- Total out-turn expenditure for 2013/14 an estimate, based on SHBE data and the 2012/13 out-turn expenditure; this is subject to revision as local authority subsidy returns are made.
- Expenditure figures may differ from previous published figures due to a change in methodology and data sources.
- Housing Benefit caseload and average weekly amounts information can be found at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk