Crisis Loan and Grant Scheme Consultation

Overview

From 1 April 2013 responsibility for the Community Care Grant and Crisis Loans transferred to local authorities from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

When the scheme transferred the council was provided with grant funding including administration costs for 2013/14 and 2014/15.

In December 2013 the DWP announced that it was cutting the funding to local authorities from 2015/16. To date there has been no change in the position and the council expects to lose £500k of funding in 2015/16.

Given the council has to save £40m from the annual budget by 2019 a decision on the future of the council’s Crisis Loan and Grant Scheme is required. While any unspent funding from 2013/14 and 2014/15 could be set aside to support the scheme into 2015/16 there is no funding for the administration of the scheme.

As a result there is a need to reduce the amount of money spent on funding and administering the Crisis Loan and Grant Scheme. 

For more information regarding the review of the Crisis Loan and Grant Scheme please click the link below:

Update on the Crisis Loan and Grant Scheme 

Join the discussion

To help shape the future of the scheme a public consultation is being carried out to give those currently eligible for the scheme, wider residents, stakeholders and partner organisations (including Voluntary Community Organisation’s (VCO’s)) the opportunity to comment and share their views.

The council is consulting on the following options:

• Close the scheme in March 2015
• Reduce the eligibility to only food and fuel support
• Reduce the eligibility to only food and fuel support and limit the provision of reused furniture and white goods
• Provide food and utility support as a grant and provide white goods / reused furniture awards as loans only
• Keep the current scheme as it is, but reduce the overall level of grant value

Additionally the council is considering:

• Continuing to offer provision at the existing level for resettlement of Domestic Violence or ex-offender cases

To inform decision making, for each option, approximate costs of running the scheme (excluding administration costs) have been provided.