Household Support Fund and Local Welfare Assistance Scheme
Case reference FOI2022/00839
Published 11 July 2022
Request
Part A: Local Welfare Assistance
By LWA 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 via which a member of the public can apply for support, that is, they are not targeted at specific cohorts.
• This does not include any new Covid support schemes which run parallel to your existing LWA scheme.
These questions specifically pertain to your local welfare assistance/provision (LWA) scheme, which you call 'Emergency Welfare Support', explained here on your website: https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/family-support/support-emergency-welfare-support and we require information from the period 1st April 2021 to March 31st 2022.
Q1. What was the total spend on your scheme in 2021/22?
Q2. How many applications did you receive to this scheme in 2021/22?
Q3. How many applications were successful in 2021/22?
Q4. How much was spent on the provision of furniture and/or white goods in 2021/22? This includes both cash, vouchers and the provision of the item itself.
Q5. What percentage of your 2021/22 spend was funded by your core spending power (as opposed to additional Govt. funding provided via Section 31 grants, such as the Household Support Fund)
Q6. What is your budget for 2022/23?
Q7. Did this scheme pre-exist the Covid-19 pandemic?
Part B: Household Support Fund
These questions specifically pertain your allocation of the £500m Household Support Fund. For clarity purposes we are referring to the first tranche of the fund announced by the Government here. This fund was announced in the autumn 2021 and had to be spent by the 31 March 2022.
Q8. How much were you allocated from the Household Support Fund in 2021/22?
Q9. How much of this fund did you spend in 2021/22?
Q10. Could anyone apply to receive support from this fund or was it distributed based on certain criteria (e.g. eligibility to FSM)?
Q11. Please provide approximate percentages indicating what this fund was spent on:
a. Targeted direct grants to recipients of the following benefits (please specify these below)
i. Free School Meals %
ii. Universal Credit %
iii. Council Tax Support %
iv. Tax Credit %
v. Discretionary Housing Payments %
vi. Other (please specify) %
b. Additional funding for your LWA scheme (as set out in Part A) %
c. Funding for third party Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations %
d. A new scheme to which members of the public could apply for support, which ran alongside your existing LWA scheme %
Response
Part A: Local Welfare Assistance
Q1. What was the total spend on your scheme in 2021/22?
£32,393
Q2. How many applications did you receive to this scheme in 2021/22?
595
Q3. How many applications were successful in 2021/22?
507
Q4. How much was spent on the provision of furniture and/or white goods in 2021/22? This includes both cash, vouchers and the provision of the item itself.
£15,078
Q5. What percentage of your 2021/22 spend was funded by your core spending power (as opposed to additional Govt. funding provided via Section 31 grants, such as the Household Support Fund)
100%
Q6. What is your budget for 2022/23?
£35,646
Q7. Did this scheme pre-exist the Covid-19 pandemic?
Yes.
Part B: Household Support Fund
Q8. How much were you allocated from the Household Support Fund in 2021/22?
£1,329,602
Q9. How much of this fund did you spend in 2021/22?
Herefordshire Council spent the full allocation of £1,329,602
Q10. Could anyone apply to receive support from this fund or was it distributed based on certain criteria (e.g. eligibility to FSM)?
This was distributed as £60 Household Support Grants to applicants in receipt of universal credit below the Free School Meal and/or Free Prescription thresholds and as local supermarket vouchers to families in receipt of free of school meals.
Q11. Please provide approximate percentages indicating what this fund was spent on:
a. Targeted direct grants to recipients of the following benefits (please specify these below)
i. Free School Meals %
ii. Universal Credit %
iii. Council Tax Support %
iv. Tax Credit %
v. Discretionary Housing Payments %
vi. Other (please specify) %
95% on Free School Meals; 5% on Universal Credit
b. Additional funding for your LWA scheme (as set out in Part A) %
N/A
c. Funding for third party Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations %
N/A
d. A new scheme to which members of the public could apply for support, which ran alongside your existing LWA scheme %
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.