Distribution of Household Support Fund allocation and Local Welfare Assistance April 24 - Sept 24
Case reference FOI2024/00943
Received 25 May 2024
Published 11 June 2024
Request
These questions relate to your current processes for distributing your latest Household Support Fund allocation (April 2024 - September 2024) and any Local Welfare Assistance Scheme you are operating. Please only share information about how you currently distribute these schemes and not how they have been distributed in the past.
We understand that the late announcement of the extension of the Household Support Fund in the Chancellor’s Spring Budget may mean that you are still making spending decisions. Please write back to us answering each question below in order. If you would like to share additional evidence to illustrate your specific answers to our questions please do.
Questions regarding the Household Support Fund (April 2024 - September 2024):
1. How are you currently distributing the Household Support Fund to residents?
2. Do you offer cash payments to residents as part of the Household Support Fund? This includes bank transfers or BACS payments, vouchers (such as Post Office vouchers or PayPoint vouchers which can be exchanged for cash), or direct cash payments. Please note - the definition of cash payments does not include supermarket vouchers or in-kind support.
3. If you do offer cash payments, do you put any limitations on how residents can spend the payments? For example requesting payments are spent on food or household bills, and asking for evidence of how the money is spent.
4. Are cash payments available to all residents or are only certain residents able to receive them? For example if you send bank transfers automatically to certain residents, but other residents can only apply for payments via supermarket vouchers.
5. Are residents able to apply directly for help from schemes linked to the Household Support Fund? Or do they need to access support through another agency, or by being automatically eligible for support?
Questions regarding any Local Welfare Assistance scheme you are running:
By Local Welfare Assistance scheme, we mean a discretionary service which:
- provides grants to your residents when facing a crisis (these grants may take the form of cash, vouchers or the item itself, e.g. a cooker).
- has a claims process through which any member of the public can apply for support i.e. it is not targeted at specific cohorts of people.
1. Please confirm if you have a Local Welfare Assistance Scheme. If you do please share its name and a link to its webpage and answer the questions below.
2. How are you currently distributing your Local Welfare Assistance scheme to residents?
3. Do you offer cash payments to residents as part of your Local Welfare Assistance scheme? This includes bank transfers or BACS payments, vouchers (such as Post Office vouchers or PayPoint vouchers which can be exchanged for cash), or direct cash payments. It does not include supermarket vouchers or in-kind payments.
4. If you do offer cash payments, do you put any limitations on how residents can spend the payments? For example requesting payments are spent on food or household bills, and asking for evidence of how the money is spent.
5. Are cash payments available to all residents or are only certain residents able to receive them? For example if you send bank transfers automatically to certain residents, but other residents can only apply for payments via supermarket vouchers.
Response
These questions relate to your current processes for distributing your latest Household Support Fund allocation (April 2024 - September 2024) and any Local Welfare Assistance Scheme you are operating. Please only share information about how you currently distribute these schemes and not how they have been distributed in the past.
We understand that the late announcement of the extension of the Household Support Fund in the Chancellor’s Spring Budget may mean that you are still making spending decisions. Please write back to us answering each question below in order. If you would like to share additional evidence to illustrate your specific answers to our questions please do.
Questions regarding the Household Support Fund (April 2024 - September 2024):
1. How are you currently distributing the Household Support Fund to residents?
Household Support Funding is distributed by direct application through Local Welfare Provisions, working in partnership with third party organisations who support residents with food vouchers, food parcels, grants for energy bills, energy packs, wider essentials and household items.
Further information can be found on Herefordshire Council’s website using the link below:
Cost of living – Herefordshire Council
2. Do you offer cash payments to residents as part of the Household Support Fund? This includes bank transfers or BACS payments, vouchers (such as Post Office vouchers or PayPoint vouchers which can be exchanged for cash), or direct cash payments. Please note - the definition of cash payments does not include supermarket vouchers or in-kind support.
Yes we offer BACS payment for households that have applied for the Household Support Fund as they use energy intensive medical equipment in the home, PayPoint vouchers for residents that have applied and been approved by direct application and PayPoint vouchers for families with children under 5 years that have been referred by professionals.
3. If you do offer cash payments, do you put any limitations on how residents can spend the payments? For example requesting payments are spent on food or household bills, and asking for evidence of how the money is spent.
We do not put any limitations on how residents spend the BACS payment or ask for evidence on how the money is spent. We issue a PayPoint voucher that can be exchanged for cash if residents apply for assistance with gas or electric but do not have a pre-payment meter.
4. Are cash payments available to all residents or are only certain residents able to receive them? For example if you send bank transfers automatically to certain residents, but other residents can only apply for payments via supermarket vouchers.
BACS payments are made specifically for households using energy-intensive medical equipment to ensure they have easier access to the funding.
5. Are residents able to apply directly for help from schemes linked to the Household Support Fund? Or do they need to access support through another agency, or by being automatically eligible for support?
Residents can apply directly for some schemes, while others require a referral for support. The only initiative that residents are automatically eligible for is parents of children that are eligible for free school meals.
Questions regarding any Local Welfare Assistance scheme you are running:
By Local Welfare Assistance scheme, we mean a discretionary service which:
- provides grants to your residents when facing a crisis (these grants may take the form of cash, vouchers or the item itself, e.g. a cooker).
- has a claims process through which any member of the public can apply for support i.e. it is not targeted at specific cohorts of people.
1. Please confirm if you have a Local Welfare Assistance Scheme. If you do please share its name and a link to its webpage and answer the questions below.
Yes - Local Welfare Provision (LWP).
https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/family-support/support-emergency-welfare-support
2. How are you currently distributing your Local Welfare Assistance scheme to residents?
Direct or agency (third party) applications to Local Welfare Provision. Eligibility ascertained using data submitted on application and checked against data held by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Herefordshire Council.
Essential white goods or furniture (items only) distributed.
NB. Where appropriate and with client consent Local Welfare Provision (LWP) also refers onwards to external parties, including Hereford Food Bank (food parcels and kitchen starter packs) for which LWP is charged for each initial (1st) referral.
3. Do you offer cash payments to residents as part of your Local Welfare Assistance scheme? This includes bank transfers or BACS payments, vouchers (such as Post Office vouchers or PayPoint vouchers which can be exchanged for cash), or direct cash payments. It does not include supermarket vouchers or in-kind payments.
No cash payments offered.
4. If you do offer cash payments, do you put any limitations on how residents can spend the payments? For example requesting payments are spent on food or household bills, and asking for evidence of how the money is spent.
N/A
5. Are cash payments available to all residents or are only certain residents able to receive them? For example if you send bank transfers automatically to certain residents, but other residents can only apply for payments via supermarket vouchers.
N/A
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.