Wigan Council spent entire budget for housing support payments
Wigan Council spent all its allocated budget for supporting people with housing costs last year, new figures show.
Housing charity Shelter called the payments "a meagre top-up", that do little to prevent families being forced into homelessness.
New data from the Department for Work and Pensions shows £436,756 was spent on Discretionary Housing Payments in Wigan in the year to March.
These are one-off payments made by councils to people entitled to Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit, who are struggling to meet their housing costs.
Wigan Council spent the entire amount allocated by the Government for these payments.
This was slightly more than the year before, when it spent 99 per cent.
Last year, the Government provided £100m to councils to make these payments.
They are also allowed to top up this funding up to a maximum of two and half times their allocation, using their own funds.
Across England and Wales, councils spent 107 per cent of the total allocation for the year, compared to 112 per cent the year before.
Additionally, about a quarter of authorities spent over 105 per cent of their allocation, while just 18 per cent spent less than 95 per cent.
Mairi MacRae, director of campaigns and policy at Shelter, said: "While Discretionary Housing Payments are important, they are merely a sticking plaster compared to what is needed to prevent families being forced into homelessness."
She added: "Huge shortfalls between housing benefit and the cost of rents means families are being forced to shell out eyewatering sums on private rents to avoid homelessness.
"Year on year, thousands of families are ending up homeless in cramped, unsafe temporary accommodation and left stuck there for months, even years, because there’s nowhere affordable or suitable for them to move on to."
She called for Local Housing Allowance to be unfrozen, so it covers "at least the bottom third of local rents", and the construction of more "genuinely affordable social rent homes".
The data shows the council spent £426,179 of its total DHP expenditure supporting those affected by various welfare reforms, including £134,246 on those hit by the removal of the Spare Room Subsidy.
Across both nations, 61 per cent of DHP expenditure was attributed to welfare reform, with removal of the SRS accounting for 24 per cent.
David Fothergill, chair of the Local Government Association's community wellbeing board, said the housing crisis is adding "additional pressure" to councils already facing "significant financial challenges".
He added: "The gap between what councils have paid out in benefits versus what they receive has exacerbated this, contributing to challenges faced by councils and communities in housing."
He called for the DHA to be brought in line with the Household Support Fund, a separate scheme to support households with the wider cost of living.
"Local government needs to be fully reimbursed for the support they have provided, as well as being a central partner with the Government as they work on aligning DHP and HSF," he added.
A Government spokesperson said: "We’re determined that no one should be living in poverty, and Discretionary Housing Payments are just one of the ways in which we’re helping people.