SOUTHAMPTON City Council will spend £128,000 – to help people understand the changes to welfare benefits.

People living in council or housing association homes will have their housing benefit reduced by hundreds of pounds a year if they are deemed to have a spare bedroom, as part of the so-called “bedroom tax”.

And it’s estimated 1,800 people could be caught out in Southampton.

In the biggest shake-up of welfare for 60 years, the Government has also introduced a cap on the amount of benefits that working-age people receive, and Disability Living Allowance has been replaced by a new benefit, called the Personal Independence Payment.

Now council chiefs have set aside £128,000 to help lessen the impact of the welfare reforms on city residents.

City council chiefs agreed the funding after a report was put together by one of the council’s scrutiny panels on how to deal with the impact the welfare changes may have on people in Southampton.

The council has already adopted some of those recommendations made by the overview and scrutiny management committee, such as setting up a discretionary council tax fund to deal with cases of exceptional hardship.

And on Tuesday Cabinet chiefs approved all of the other recommendations made by the scrutiny panel report, and have agreed £128,000 of funding for various schemes.

The council has allocated £50,000 to support and develop local expert advice providers, £20,000 to increase access to IT and training opportunities and £10,000 to support employment support services.

The funding will come from the council’s contingency budget.

Council leader Simon Letts said: “We think that in the current climate, with the pressure that a significant number of our population will be in over the next few years due to the changes in the benefit system this is the least that we as a council can do.

“It is absolutely a priority to support those in most need and this goes some way towards doing that.”