Universal Credit: East Ayrshire

(asked on 3rd July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the oral contribution of 1 July 2019, Official Report, Column 903, what additional funding has been made available to East Ayrshire Council to mitigate the costs associated with the roll-out of universal credit.


Answered by
Alok Sharma Portrait
Alok Sharma
COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
This question was answered on 12th July 2019

New Burdens funding has been provided to councils to cover additional costs associated with Universal Credit. In 2017/18 the Department paid £13m in New Burdens funding and paid £14m in New Burdens for 2018/19. Last year we worked with a number of Local Authorities to refresh these costs resulting in £18m in New Burdens being paid in 2019/20. 67 Local Authorities received a total of £4.7m in extra payments to recognise alleged additional costs caused in the early stages of roll out.

The East Ayrshire Council has received £169k from the Department in New Burden funding.

We continue to work with number of Local Authorities to further understand their service costs to inform future funding requirements.

Reticulating Splines