Discretionary Housing Payments in Scotland: 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026

The Scottish Government’s total published budget for DHPs in 2025-26 was £97.1 million. This includes three funding streams for DHPs: ‘Bedroom Tax Mitigation’ (£79.7 million), ‘Benefit Cap Mitigation’ (£9.5 million) and ‘Other DHPs’ (£7.9 million). The Bedroom Tax is also known as the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS). A further £3 million was provided during the year in two separate tranches to support the Housing Emergency Action Plan (HEAP). £2 million of this funding can be carried forward to 2026-27 if required. The distribution of funding has been agreed by local authority leaders (as represented by CoSLA) and the Scottish Government (Table 1 and figure below) as follows:

• To date £82.2 million of funding has been provided.
• Tranche 1 funding included “Other DHPs” funding for 2025-26 (£7.9 million) and 80% of the estimated cost of “Bedroom Tax Mitigation” (£63.8 million) and “Benefit Cap Mitigation” (£7.6 million).
• Housing Emergency Action Plan (HEAP) of £3 million was announced during the year, consisting of an initial £1 million followed by a further £2 million, of which any remaining funds can be carried forward to 2026-27.
• The remaining 20% of the estimated cost of “Bedroom Tax Mitigation” (£15.9 million), and the remaining 20% of the estimated cost of the ‘Benefit Cap Mitigation’, (£1.9 million) has been held back to reimburse local authorities for spending over and above Tranche 1.

For more information about the funding methodology, see the Background Note.