Scottish Welfare Fund update - October 2024

During September our Scottish Welfare Fund team

  • responded to 48 enquiries
  • made 40 decisions
    • 19 community care grants
    • 21 crisis grants
  • upheld 6 (32%) community care grants and 4 (19%) crisis grants
  • signposted an additional 40 applicants to other sources of assistance. 35 (88%) of them called us instead of their local council, in error
  • received seven enquiries from local council liaison contacts seeking advice on the guidance.

Stakeholder engagement 

We welcomed 27 attendees from councils and the Scottish Government to our local authority sounding board on 10 October 2024. We shared updates about our decisions, lessons learned and ongoing business plan projects. One council presented the improvement actions they have taken in recent months as a result of our Support and Intervention Policy intervention. 

Case studies 

Awards in principle 

C asked us to review the Council’s decision on their community care grant application. C had recently accepted a new tenancy after a period of living in temporary accommodation and refuge accommodation. They applied for several items to help set up their home.

The Council made an award in principle dependent on receiving a copy of the tenancy agreement but they did not inform C of this. Once they received the tenancy agreement, they issued their decision to award a cooker, a single bed and a sofa. However, by this time, C had moved into the property and sourced some of the items themselves. C asked the Council to reconsider some of the items and reimburse them for the costs incurred. The Council said they would not consider reimbursement and did not change the priority assessment on any of the remaining items. 

We received the Council's file and spoke with C. We noted that C promptly provided the tenancy agreement to the Council once it was available. However, since C was not aware of the decision in principle, they proceeded to source the items needed to move in. In doing so, C borrowed money from family on credit and incurred a 5-year debt through the Council’s Core Furnishing Service to access some of the other items they needed. We assessed that the Council’s decision not to consider reimbursement was not supported by the guidance. We also disagreed with the priority assessment of the items applied for. 

We instructed the Council to make a cash award for the items C had sourced through the furnishing service and those items obtained by borrowing money or taking on credit. The total came to £1,325.48, covering a single bed, three sets of bedding, a cooker, a sofa, and a washing machine. We provided feedback to the Council, advising them to consider detriment where the need has been met. We also encouraged the Council to share provisional decisions with applicants to prevent similar situations in the future. Additionally, we highlighted that the Council did not gather sufficient information to inform their priority assessments.

You can find more case studies in the searchable directory on our website.

Updated: October 23, 2024