£2.1m of cost of living support delivered to Shropshire residents since October 2022

Shropshire Council has delivered over £2 million of additional support for residents from the Household Support Fund provided by the Government since October 2022. 

This follows the first and second Household Support Funds, which started in September 2021, as well as three previous funds of targeted household support earlier in the pandemic. 

Shropshire Council worked with their partners in the voluntary and community sector to decide how to share the funding, to make sure that it had the most benefit for local residents in need. 

The funding was made available to vulnerable and low-income households who have been impacted by the rising cost of food, energy and other everyday expenses. Targeted households included those with children, people with disabilities and with pensioners, as well as low-income households who previously had not received any cost of living support payments.

Household Support Fund 3

£75,000 was made available to partner organisations for their own hardship grant schemes, helping people in their communities, and was distributed to households in this way. 

One way that Shropshire Council’s welfare support team used the fund was to make emergency payments to households who had been referred to them as a result of calls handled by our customer services. 

Over 18,000 households were supported with targeted payments, identified for support through welfare information that is held by the council. 

Gwilym Butler, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for finance and corporate resources, said:- 

“The third round of Household Support Funding has been a great help to many of our residents, and we have made sure that it was allocated to reach those in most need. 

“Our partners in the voluntary and community sector have been a vital part of this process, sharing their knowledge and expertise of the communities that they work in. 

“Thanks to the joint efforts of the customer service team and welfare support team at Shropshire Council, this fund has helped a number of households who might not have known where to find help and could otherwise have slipped through the net. 

“A fourth Household Support Fund, worth £4.1m, has now been made available to us from the Department for Work and Pensions. This runs until the end of March 2024, and allows us to make longer term plans about how to share the support. We will continue to make sure it is targeted to households who are struggling with the increased cost of living the most. 

“There is more cost of living support on our website, which includes links to resources and advice from our partners in the community.” 

See our Household Support Fund webpages for more information about the latest round of support, and how this will be shared to benefit those most in need.