Funding levels for housing benefit in 2014/15 will remain sufficient for local authorities ahead of the troubled transition to Universal Credit (UC), welfare ministers have pledged.

Welfare minister, Lord Freud, made the claim yesterday in a speech to the Local Government Association (LGA) conference on the local impact of welfare reform.

He confirmed the new timetable for implementing the Coalition's flagship welfare programme would now see UC available in each part of Great Britain during 2016.

This follows last week's announcement that most claimants would be migrated over to the single monthly UC payment between 2016 and 2017.

According to revised plans, there are now expected to be 400,000 UC claimants in 2015/16 - rather than the previously forecast 4.5 million people in receipt of six amalgamated means-tested benefits.

By this time, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) would have closed new claims to working age Housing Benefit, which is set to be combined into a single monthly payment with five other benefits, Lord Freud said.

‘Clearly last week's announcement of our rollout plans will mean we'll need to take a close look, with LGA colleagues, at our 2015/16 funding,' Lord Freud said.

‘We'll need to make sure we take account of the position for those who've gone live with Universal Credit, and those who are yet to do so,' he said.

The welfare minister also pledged to test how UC works and interacts with the most vulnerable groups in society and assess how local support services can work effectively, by means of the updated Local Support Service Framework.

Lord Freud also confirmed moves to create a Single Fraud Investigation Service withn the DWP's fraud and error services team would be phased in from October 2014 to March 2016.

He said the proposals build on work already carried out by local authorities, DWP and HM Revenue and Custom pilot services and pledged to ensure close relationships with local authorities and to share data where possible – in areas such as tenancy fraud.