A substantial portion of this budget was spent on disability living allowance, which in 2014/2015 amounted to approximately 13.8 billion British pounds, before falling over the following years. Yet, this amount is expected to grow on an annual basis in future years, as denoted by a statistic regarding the government expenditure forecast for disability living allowance.
Another substantial share of the welfare expenditure has historically been spent on incapacity benefit, although in recent years the government has cut the amount of such spending from 6.7 billion in 2007/2008 to a mere 11 million British pounds in 2016/2017. This sizeable reduction is due to the fact that incapacity benefits has been replaced by the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
Similarly, government spending on income support has also undergone major cuts, declining by a net total of almost 12 billion British pounds from 2002/2003 to 2016/2017. Contrarily, the bugetary spending for the employment and support allowance has undergone a net increase of over 14.5 billion British pounds between 2008/2009 and 2016/2017.
Government spending on statutory maternity pay from 2002 to 2017 shows tangible growth, a trend that is set to continue over the course of the following years, according to data on the government spending forecast for statutory maternity pay. In recent years, government expenditure on carer's allowance has experienced dramatic increases. It could be speculated that this is an attempt/strategy to balance out problems regarding the NHS crisis.
The amount of government investment in pension credit has declined annually since peaking in 2010/2011, this trend is set to follow a similar course, as denoted in UK government spending of pension credit forecasts.
