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.
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.