Purpose

Following the publication of a Regulation 11
(Cases of Special Urgency), this report is for the Executive
Committee to endorse the delivery plan of the Household Support
Fund Extension.

Content

RESOLVED
 
KEY DECISION
 
That
the Executive endorsed the Regulation 11 Notice for the submission
of a delivery plan to the DWP by 1st November 2024 for
the Household Support Fund 5 secure funding for those affected by
the cost-of-living crisis. 
 
In addition to this, the
Executive :
 
a)   
Delegated authority to the Director of Public Health
in consultation with the Executive Member for Adults, Health and
Wellbeing to redistribute any funds that have not been assigned or
committed to by 31st March 2025 for:
 
                                                       
i.    
Final contribution for Warm Spaces
                                                      
ii.    
Specific funding to include access to wider
essentials and energy support i.e. sanitary and hygiene essentials
to be distributed via foodbanks or Family Hubs
                                                    
iii.    
Contribution to grant holders from HSF4 to assist
with additional pressures from the winter support
 
 
Reasons for
Recommendations:
 
a)   
The proposal in Table 3, Section 6.5, sets a clear
approach for how the funds will be used to mitigate the impact on
residents who have previously received holiday support for children
eligible for Free School Meals.
 
b)   
Cessation of holiday support will be aligned with
the start of the financial year given the uncertainty of any future
iterations of the Household Support Fund, making it clearer for
residents to understand the timings of ongoing support coming to a
natural end.
 
c)   
Holiday support is aligned with the previous support
provided by the Council through the previous iterations of the
Household Support Fund.
 
d)   
The provision of vouchers rather than cash to
support with food and essential costs via an online application and
eligibility assessment process, reduces the risk of fraud and
duplicate claims.
 
e)   
Financial support will be available for additional
energy costs through the winter when energy usage
increases.
 
f)     
Current frameworks, processes, eligibility criteria
and online application forms can be used with some minor
modifications to deliver the recommendations in Table 3, Section
6.5, ensuring support is delivered in accordance with the time
restrictions for the fund to end of March 2025.
 
 
Alternative Options
Considered:
The table below outlines a
number of alternative options which have been considered, however,
have been discounted due to the implications to vulnerable families
and reputational risk to the Council.
 
Table 1 – Summary of
Alternative Options
 

Delivery Model

Summary

Rationale

Option 1
Funds not claimed from
DWP

The programme ceases to
operate.

This would mean no further
support is provided beyond September 2024.
Reputational risk for the
Council for not supporting vulnerable and low-income
households.

Option 2
Implement same operational
delivery model as HSF4

The HSF4 delivery model
supported households with the costs of food and wider essentials,
energy costs and grants to VCSE organisations.  This option would see the funds distributed in the
same delivery model.
Guidance to local authorities
state limited funds should be allocated to advice
services.
 

Funding for advice services was
provided through the Grant programme through HSF4, and is funded through the Council’s VCSE
Strategic grant funding, so is not felt necessary or proportionate
in terms of adding best value for money to provide further
investment in advice services though HSF5. 
With the majority of the spend
(85%) being allocated to holiday support it would mean limited
funding to go across support for food & wider essentials,
winter fuel costs and VCSE, therefore significantly fewer
households being supported,

Option 3
Allocate all
funding to holiday support for children eligible for free school
meals for Autumn and Winter.

This would mean that no
additional financial support was provided to residents.
This would increase reliance on
and an expectation for funding to continue beyond the current
financial year for holiday support for those eligible.

An online portal would still
need to be developed to provide non-financial support, i.e.
referring to the VCSE sector for additional support and
advice.  Without this online portal, the
HSF5 monies would not be available to the Council.

Option 4
Allocate partial funding
to holiday support for children eligible for free school meals for
the Autumn and Winter.
 
Allocate partial funding
to VCSE Partners to issue supermarket vouchers directly to
residents.

Negotiating an agreed
eligibility criteria with
VSCE.
 

The guidance states that the
Local Authority is ultimately responsible for the eligibility
criteria and given the time constraint of the programme this is not
feasible.
There is the risk of an
inconsistent outcome for a household applying to one VCSE partner
versus another.
There is an increased risk of
duplicate funding for households seeking support from more than one
VCSE Partner with little mitigation in place to overcome this in
the VCSE sector.
An online portal would still
need to be developed to provide non-financial support, i.e.
referring to the VCSE sector for additional support and
advice.  Without this online portal, the
HSF5 monies would not be available to the Council.
This option would also require
completely new frameworks, processes and online forms which carries
a high risk of the service only being available to residents for a
short period