Further Household Support Funding announced

The Government has announced that £421m Household Support Funding (HSF6) will be made available to councils in England, to help residents through the current cost of living crisis.

Cheshire West and Chester Council has been allocated  £2.3 million from the  Household Support Fund to distribute funding, in accordance with the guidance issued by the Department of Work and Pensions, to vulnerable residents struggling with the current cost of food and fuel costs.

The funding will run until the end of March next year.

The Council has published a Member Decision Notice, setting out a decision to be made on or after 17 October,  which would then be subject to the usual rules on ‘call in’ (which will expire at 5pm on 22 October). This Notice includes plans to issue a £200 payment  to low-income pensioner households. The Council will use data from the Council Tax Reduction Scheme and Housing Benefit records to identify pensioner households not in receipt of Pension Credit, but on a low income.

Cabinet Member for Legal and Finance, Councillor Carol Gahan said:

“The Council plans to use this funding  to support  households in the most need with food, energy and water bills or essential costs related to those items and with wider essential costs. In cases of genuine emergency, we are able to use the funding to support housing costs where existing housing support schemes do not meet this exceptional need.

“As part of the funding distribution, residents will have the opportunity to apply for support via the Council’s HELP service. Cash payments can be made, via this route, to anyone meeting the eligibility criteria of the Household Support Fund scheme, which is not limited to just households in receipt of a low-income benefit. This will provide an opportunity for households who are just over the income threshold for benefits, to apply for additional support.”

The latest guidance for this fund is very similar to the previous guidance issued for the last round of Household Support Funding (HSF5), although there is an additional request that funding is seen to be delivering provisions which have a long-term, sustainable impact. The Council is currently reviewing supplier options to help support a programme of Income Maximisation which will enable it to target the borough’s most financially vulnerable residents and ensure they are claiming the levels of support to which they are entitled.

Further information will be provided on the Council’s website once a decision has been made.