Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of how much each local authority returned to his Department in unused discretionary housing payment funding in 2013-14.

Local authorities are required to submit their claims for funding for Discretionary Housing Payments by 30 April following the end of the financial year.

Until the returns have been received from each authority, we are not in a position to say how much of this funding has been unused.

At the end of the 2012/13 year, of the £67,906,916 made available by central Government towards Discretionary Housing Payments, £12,453,471 (18.34%) was unspent.