Bedroom tax cash handed out is galling: Shirley-Anne
MORE than 100,000 grants have been paid out by the scheme used to mitigate Westminster’s so-called bedroom tax in Scotland, new figures show.
Between April and September this year, councils made 100,635 awards via the Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) scheme, totalling some £56.9 million.
These included “a sizeable number of cases” when people were affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy – dubbed the “bedroom tax” by opponents – the Scottish Government report said.
Social Security Secretary ShirleyAnne Somerville said the amount of cash spent was “galling”.
She said making the payments was the “right thing to do”, with more than 70,000 households getting help to stay in their homes.
By the end of September this year, councils has spent 93 per cent of the £60.9 million the Scottish Government budgeted for DHPs for 2018-19.
Ms Somerville said: “These figures provide further evidence of the cost to Scottish ministers of protecting people from the very worst impacts of UK Government welfare reform.”