All 195 council billing authorities which applied for cash to develop council tax benefit (CTB) support schemes will receive grant money to cope with the first year of localised welfare payments.

Details of the amounts parcelled out to councils are contained in a parliamentary statement, which shows around three in five English authorities responsible for implementing local schemes will share more than £26m to develop individual CTB schemes.

Among billing authorities Liverpool City Council is set for the biggest individual slice of transition funding – worth £1,253,520, figures released this morning indicate.  Other major beneficiaries include Durham CC which has been given £1,094,392 and Manchester City Council which has secured just under £1m from the £100m funding pot first announced by ministers last October.

Additionally some 91 major precepting authorities – including county councils, police and fire service authorities – successfully appiled for just under £25m in transition funding.  Amounts vary from Kent CC's share worth just less than £1.9m to Essex Police's paltry £8,673 handout.

To qualify for the voluntary grant authorities had to design schemes to ensure residents currently wholly exempt from council tax bills would pay between zero and no more than 8.5% of local charges from this April.  Additionally, authorities had to guarantee taper rates would not increase above 25% or sharply affect people returning to work.