Purpose

Decision to directly award contracts as specialist providers of web based application and payment providers of up to £500K of the Crisis Resilience Fund Grant award pending full acceptance of the larger grant by Cabinet in quarter 1 20206.

Decision

To approve the procurement of digital solutions via a direct award from Crown Commercial Services. This will secure eligible crisis payments via compliant and secure portals whilst maintaining effective and robust monitoring and evaluation of the fund for reporting purposes. The challenging timescales set out by HM Government in writing to the Council on 24th March 2026 with a view to make emergency payments directly by 1st April 2026 limit the possibility of undertaking a full procurement process and any delay in delivery risks financial hardship to residents and reputational damage

To allocate the proposed sum of up to £500,000 from the Crisis Resilience funding specified allocation to make emergency payment awards of up to £300 per household pending full approval of the main CRF grant and dispersal model by cabinet in quarter 1 2026.

To take appropriate delegated decision to mobilise an online application process and make assessed payments specifically to low income households specifically impacted by the price of household heating oil as a result of the war in middle east.

Alternative options considered

Department for Work & Pensions issued a grant offer letter on 24 March to distribute funding to households in Staffordshire by 1at April 2026. This grant is specifically targeted at low-income households who are experiencing financial hardship due to the current inflated cost of Oil based heating fuel.

We explored alternative methods to distribute this grant award via Partners and District Councils and Charitable organisations, however due to a lack of staff capacity they reported that this this was not an option.

We explored the current option of distributing vouchers to households via our Household Support methodology however as the eligible cohort of the Crisis Resilience grant is different to previous Household Support Fund this was not feasible.

We considered aligning the full allocation of Crisis Resilience Fund Cabinet report to a decision for Cabinet but the deadline for expected mobilisation would restrict funds reaching vulnerable residents until well beyond the published date of 1st April and would therefore prompt complaints from residents and reputational risk.