Income Support Annual Expenditure

Breakdown of annual Income Support weekly expenditure, split by household type and component groups, for each year since 2012.

The value of Income Support paid to a particular household depends not only on the mix of components that it is entitled to, but also on the other income received by the household. it is therefore not straightforward to report on the value of each component in the total expenditure for Income Support. However, to enable an analysis of the estimated total costs by component, a method of allocating costs within the various components has been developed. This method divides the actual Income Support benefit received by a household in proportion to the gross value of each of the components that the household is eligible for, to allocate a specific net value to each of the components. The mix of Income Support claims changes over time and the values of some components can change during the year. This analysis includes data taken from each month of the year to ensure that trends in the take-up of Income Support and rate changes during the year are represented, and provides approximate net values for the cost of each component group.