Councils across the UK have been receiving the Household Support Fund (HSF) since 2021, when the Government launched the scheme to help residents with the rising cost of living.
But the Government has announced the fund will stop and be replaced with a new Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF), rolled out from April 1 this year.
At a cabinet meeting yesterday (Monday), a report detailing how the CRF will operate was presented to councillors.
Andy Jeffs, the council’s director of revenues and welfare services, told the Observatory House meeting that Slough continues to experience high levels of financial hardship.
He said: “Demand for local welfare support has remained consistently high with increasing complexity of need among residents presenting for assistance to the council.”
To help alleviate these pressures on the local authority, the CRF grant will be paid annually over a three-year period from this year until March 2029.
A provisional CRF of £2.74million per year has been allocated for Slough Borough Council, to be used to help low-income households struggling with the cost of living crisis.
It will help residents avoid homelessness, access funds for essential living costs, and increase people’s financial confidence and independence, a report said.
Residents will need to submit an application to be considered for the fund.
Councillor Puja Bedi (Con, Colnbrook and Poyle) said: “Our proposal is to use this funding in a way that not only responds to immediate needs but also builds longer-term financial resilience, helping residents avoid crisis, sustain housing and remain in work.”
The fund is designed to be accessible through a ‘cash-first approach’, she added.
There are some differences between the Household Support Fund and its CRF replacement, however.
The CRF is a targeted fund based on a person or family’s needs, as opposed to universal welfare provision.
This means the introduction of the CRF will affect how support with free school meals is delivered during school holidays.
Mr Jeffs said: “As the fund is need-based, a crisis-focused fund, not a universal welfare provision, it’s different from the Household Support Fund in that sense.
“And in terms of provision of free school meal vouchers, it does not permit automatic blanket vouchers for all free-school meal families.
“So instead, the fund must prioritise support for the poorest families during school holidays through targeted needs-based help by assessing individual hardship, choosing the most appropriate form of assistance and linking families to wider resilience services.
“Therefore, vouchers for all those in receipt of free school meals will be phased out and will not be available past the school summer holiday break.”
To help mitigate this, other forms of funding, such as £165,000 for the Holidays, Activities and Food Programme (HAF) or similar schemes, will be made available.
For the provision of vouchers for free school meals, £600,000 will be allocated, Mr Jeffs added.
Other ways the money will be spent include £213,584 towards the staffing and administration of the fund, £501,546 towards housing payments, and £753,454 for crisis payments.
