ST HELENS Council paid out £67 million in housing benefits in 2016-17, it has been revealed.

The figure was disclosed during a report at the council’s audit and governance committee meeting.

Tommy Rooney from the audit firm Grant Thornton said it had been successful in certifying the council’s housing benefit subsidy claim of £67,219,319 million from central government.

Cllr John Fulham, cabinet member for growth, said many of the people who were in receipt of housing benefits were in the rental market.

The Moss Bank councillor said: “It is quite a significant quantum, £67 million, and it’s unfortunate that we have to have housing benefits because in an ideal world nobody would need any social security.

“But unfortunately, they do because the housing market doesn’t always work in the best way and incomes aren’t always in the right volume and quantities to help those people who need a roof over their head.

“£67 million is quite a significant sum for a small borough and I just think it’s important that we take notice of the fact that people in receipt of those are increasingly in the private sector where there is less value for money and fewer tenancy protection rights.”

Mr Rooney confirmed that the council paid £10,140 to Grant Thornton to carry out the work needed to complete the claim, a fee set by PSSA (Public Sector Audit Appointments).

Mr Rooney said: “We certified the claim for £67 million and we issued a qualification letter to the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions), to bring their attention to a couple of issues, but they weren’t issues that required any amendments to the claim.

“So, the claim remains to the value that was submitted to us.”

The issues included the miscalculated weekly income for a claimant in receipt of rent allowance resulting in underpayment and three errors resulting from the incorrect assessment of a claimant’s income.

Two resulted in underpayments and one resulted in a £1 overpayment over a seven-week period.

There were also three cases where rent liability had been incorrectly determined, resulting in underpayments to the claimants. The errors were from a sample of 80 cases.