How much housing benefit is paid out?

During the last year we paid out £462.9m in Housing Benefit to public and private sector tenants. We pay Housing Benefit to 137,675 claimants (67,364 in Housing Executive tenancies, 70,311 in private sector tenancies).

Cutting out fraud is high on our agenda and we are working hard to detect and prosecute for fraud when it occurs. During the year, we referred 328 cases to the Benefit Investigation Service of the Social Security Agency.

During the year there were three major pieces of new legislation which required changes to Housing Benefit and associated responsibilities.  These were all introduced on time following carefully planned preparations.  They related to the introduction of Local Housing Allowance and Lone Pensioner Allowance in April and the Employment and Support Allowance in October 2008.