This week saw the national roll-out of the household benefit cap. All local authorities with 275 or fewer affected households, which in fact are the vast majority, especially amongst shire districts, have started implementation. Those with more than 276 affected households, likely to be mainly London boroughs and ‘mets', will follow on from around 12 August. Four London boroughs, including my own authority, Bromley, were front runners and started on 15 April. Almost three quarters of local authorities will have fewer than 100 households affected in 2013/14.

The cap is a key part of work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reform programme, and an important part of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition agreement. It, along with other elements of the reform programme – changes to housing benefit and the localisation of council tax benefit (CTB) – has certainly generated a lot of controversy, and is an important bread and butter issue for councillors and officers alike. Local authorities are responsible for administering the schemes until, with the exception of CTB, they are absorbed into the new Universal Credit (UC), due to be rolled out from October and administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).