Shropshire Council statement on welfare fund spending

Shropshire Council has issued the following information to clarify media reports that money given to the council to help people in need is being spent on a website.

The Government has provided funding for the council, locally called the ‘Local Support and Prevention Fund’, which replaced community grants and crisis loans.

This funding has also been described as a welfare fund, or poverty funding, and the amount provided for grants was £467,992 in 2013/14 and £467,992 in 2014/15.

£73,750 of the £467,992 grant for 2013/14 was spent, and there will be no further funding after this financial year.

Therefore, to ensure that this funding is used to help those who need it and in a way that provides a sustainable support programme in the future, Shropshire Council is, in partnership with social housing providers, the voluntary sector and other support providers, working to develop a scheme that addresses the longer-term needs of those people who most need support.

Previous Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) scheme:

Under the previous DWP administered scheme a family, for example, could be granted cash for food without exploring why the family had found themselves in this predicament in the first place.

Without addressing longer term needs, the family would make multiple applications to the fund which would address an immediate issue, but a cycle of financial dependency would develop as the underlying cause behind their circumstances had not been addressed.

The new practice:

Under the new scheme, partner organisations will work together to provide support and assistance to that family in a way that helps them address those underlying issues and reduce the dependency that develops when they are not tackled.

This may be through debt advice, housing advice, help with budgeting or return to work schemes.  Instead of direct money payments to an individual, the partnership will buy direct what the individual may need and give them the end product, rather than the money.

Cash grants will still be provided where this represents the best option in the circumstances, but partners will always look first at alternative ways to provide that support and in a way that seeks to resolve the underlying issues.  Without dealing with these issues which have resulted in this crisis point, the individual is likely to return to the fund in the future as their circumstances won’t have changed.

The proposed website:

The proposed website would cost around £20,000 – about two per cent of the total fund – and this spend would need to be agreed by all the partners in the Welfare Board.  The website would:

• Provide information about the scheme.
• Lead people through the journey to help them finding potential solutions to their problem online.
• Link to useful information elsewhere (partner/stakeholder sites and national info) and video content.

It would also have a secondary function:

• Storing forms/documents for professional use.
• Ability to communicate/share info to enable the best co-operation between partners, resulting in a robust and rounded support network.

Mike Owen, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member with responsibility for resources, said:

“There appears to have been some confusion about this so we wanted to clarify things a little.

“The most important thing is that the money we have is not being ‘topped up’ in the coming years.  Because of this, we need to make sure it is spent with a view to providing and maintaining a support network in the future.

“One of the reasons the partnership is considering investing in a website is to build that network – both for users to have easy access to information, help and advice, and for the professionals to work as closely together as we can to provide the best support possible to those in need.

“It is one, very small, part of a comprehensive plan the partnership have been working on.”