Councils paid housing benefit to four million people last year, a slight increase on 2006, fuelled by a surge of payments to private landlords. Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions last week revealed rising numbers of recipients by the end of 2007. The figures do not cover the period of the economic downturn, which is expected to reveal increasing benefit dependency across areas affected by recent job losses. But they do expose the extent to which councils are, under new benefit arrangements, paying tenants' rent directly to private landlords. Almost one million payments are now made to private landlords. A DWP source said: ‘We expected a rise in payments to private landlords following the introduction of a reformed housing benefit which provides a flat fee to many claimants, encouraging them to shop around for adequate housing. It was inevitable that the private housing market would assume greater responsibility for housing provision.' More than 1.5m of housing benefit claimants were aged over 60, while the average weekly payment made by councils was £71. The DWP also revealed that councils paid council tax benefit to five million people at the end of 2007, half of whom were aged over 65.
