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Councils write off £25m in overpaid housing benefit
British councils wrote off £25m in overpaid housing benefit between April and September last year, according to government data.
The newly published housing benefit debt recovery statistics also showed that the amount of housing benefit overpaid by English, Welsh and Scottish councils was £280m in the first two quarters of 2021-22, while they recovered £214m.
Councils overpaid housing benefit, an income-related benefit intended to help meet housing costs for rented accommodation, by £17m more compared with the same period the year before.
They recovered £12m more and wrote off £0.5m less than the year before.
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Since the start of the 2018-19 financial year, councils have either recovered or written off more overpayments than they have identified.
This has led to the total amount of outstanding debt falling.
At the start of Q2 in 2021-22, total outstanding debt stood at £1.82bn – £154m less than at the start of Q2 of 2020-21.
Fewer people are using housing benefit because of the move to Universal Credit.
The amount of housing benefit overpayment began reducing in 2018-19 and continued to fall sharply throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
Between Q3 of 2019-20 and Q3 of 2020-21, it fell to £92m as many councils redeployed staff away from debt recovery to frontline activities and restricted face-to-face meetings between staff and claimants.
Since the end of 2020-21, the amount of housing benefit overpaid increased to £107m in Q2 of 2021-22 – an increase of 14% compared with the same quarter in the year before.
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