FOI Request - Scottish Welfare Fund & Household Support Fund
Request 101003121467
Part A: Scottish Welfare Fund
All questions in Part A are specifically referring to support provided by you via the Scottish Welfare Fund and we require information from the period 1st April 2021 to 31st March 2022.
1. What was the total spend on your scheme in 2021/22?
2. How many applications did you receive to this scheme in 2021/22?
3. How many applications were successful in 2021/22?
4. 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.
5. What is your budget for 2022/23?
Part B: Household Support Fund
These questions specifically pertain your allocation of the Household Support Fund. For clarity purposes we are referring to the fund announced by the Government here.
We believe that Scotland received £25 million from the Household Support Fund as part of the first tranche of funding from Autumn 2021 to March 2022. This was then allocated to Scottish Local Authorities as flexible funding. This is outlined on the Scottish government website here.
For further clarification, the Scottish government website states the Household Support Fund was distributed as follows:
“The Scottish Government has committed to strengthening support to low income households through the £41 million available in Barnett consequentials from the Household Support Fund. Measures include £25 million in flexible funding to local authorities, £10 million through national partners who are tackling fuel poverty, and a further £6 million through third sector partners that support low income households.”
It is your share of this £25 million that we would like information on.
This fund was announced in the autumn and had to be spent by the 31 March 2022.
6. How much were you allocated from the Household Support Fund/Flexible Funding in 2021/22?
7. How much of this fund did you spend in 2021/22?
8. Could anyone apply to receive support from this fund or was it distributed based on certain criteria (e.g. eligibility to FSM)?
9. 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 Scottish Welfare Fund 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 SWF scheme %
Response 24-08-2022
Part A:
1. £637,136.02
2. 3,323
3. 2,019
4. £471,069.17
5. £606,355.66
Part B:
6. £581,840
7. £581,840
8. The criteria was that people had to live within the Moray area, be in receipt of benefits or financially struggling and they had to engage with the Money Advice Moray service for wider help and support with budgeting, benefits and debts.
9.
a) The payments were not targeted at certain recipients, only the criteria above.
b) 16%
c) None
d) None