Purpose

The purpose of the Household Support Fund is to provide support to upper tier local authorities, in England, for expenditure lawfully incurred or to be incurred by them in accordance with the conditions of the Fund to provide support to households in the most need with food, energy and water bills. It can also be used to support households with essential costs related to those items and with wider essential costs. In exceptional cases of genuine emergency, it can additionally be used to support housing costs, where existing housing support schemes do not meet this exceptional need.  At least 50% of the total funding must be spent on families with children.

This is deemed to be a Key Decision and the provisions of Standing Order C21 have been complied with. Compliance with Standing Orders C19 and C20 was impractical as the grant allocation has only recently been announced.

Decision

The Leader of the County Council and Cabinet Member for Education & Skills approved the recommendations as set out in the report.

This decision should be implemented immediately for the purposes of Standing Order C29 as any delay could adversely affect the execution of the County Council's responsibilities. The reason for this is that the allocation of the grant should be implemented without delay for the reasons set out in the report.