GLASGOW is on course to have more than £8m spent on payments to mitigate the bedroom tax this year.

Latest figures show almost 20,000 households in the city have so far been allocated Discretionary Housing Payments mainly to make up the shortfall in housing benefit to prevent bedroom tax arrears.

Between them the UK Government, Scottish Government and Glasgow city Council has already spent £5.5m up to this month in mitigating the removal of spare room subsidy policy.

Another £2.8 is expected by the end of the financial year in March taking the city’s total to £8,307,437.

Glasgow is by far the biggest with a DHP bill almost double that of Edinburgh, which is estimated to spend 4.6m.

In total Scotland will spend £48.3m in ensuring no-one falls behind with rent or has to pay extra as a result of the bedroom tax.

The average award in the city is £432, lower than the national average of £476, which is a reflection of the difference in social sector rents across the country.

Up to September this year the city council had allocated awards to 18,059 applicants.

Across Scotland almost 100,000 people had applied for help following a cut to housing benefit including many because they were deemed to have a spare room.

The controversial policy sees housing benefit cut by 14% if a social sector tenants has a spare room.

If they have two spare bedrooms the cut is increased to 25%.

The bulk of the cash to mitigate the bedroom tax has come from the Scottish Government.

It allocated £35m for 2015/16 for councils to give in discretionary housing Payments.

The UK Government provided local authorities with £13.3m for DHP, which covers housing costs other than bedroom tax arrears out of a UK fund of £125m this year.

A Scottish Government spokesman said it was: “Committed to reimbursing Local Authorities for the impact the RSRS.

The final amount will be calculated and announced after the end of the 2015/16 financial year.”

Glasgow has been spending around £600,000 to £700,000 a months this year on DHP. Across Scotland the spend has been around £4m a month.

Earlier this month the Evening Times reported there are 86,804 people claiming help with housing costs in Glasgow and 12,443 had a reduction of an average of £12.18 per week because they were deemed to have a spare room.

Glasgow had the most people affected by the bedroom tax of any city in the UK.