Decision Maker:

Outcome: Recommendations Approved

Is Key Decision?: No

Is Callable In?: No

Date of Decision: September 30, 2024

Purpose:

Content: RESOLVED:   1.  Authorised the Council to accept the proposed Household Support Fund 6 programme grant funding of £2,822,258.58 from the Department for Work and Pensions (October 2024 - March 2025) as set out in this report and authorised the distribution of such grant monies to the voluntary and community sector organisations and external bodies set out in Appendix 2.   2.  Delegated authority to approve any amendments to the programme and the deployment of resources to respond to any requirements of funding received via guidance and to utilise any underspends from October 2024 to March 2025 to the Director of Corporate Strategy & Transformation in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Employment, Human Resources and Equalities to ensure the funding is fully utilised to deliver crisis support to Hackney residents.   REASONS FOR DECISION   This report sets out plans for the use of Hackney’s £2,822,258.58 Household Support Fund allocation which must be spent in full between 1st October 2024 and 31st March 2025. Any funding unspent would be clawed back by the Department for Work and Pensions.   Officers started to consider the design of this Household Support Fund programme as soon as the announcement to extend the programme was made on 2nd September. Given the short time scales and the need to stand up the programme as quickly as possible for the 1st October, following discussion with relevant cabinet leads, it was agreed that the existing programme would largely be continued.   The programme design is based on the following guiding principles.  These principles were developed for previous iterations of HSF and given the programme and approach will be broadly similar they will continue to provide a framework for delivery of HSF 6:   Sustainability, early help and prevention Our learning from the current and previous programmes supports transition from an approach based on crisis support to one based on less transactional, longer-term and more sustainable forms of support that can help prevent and mitigate financial crises. This includes the provision of advice to help residents maximise their incomes alongside emergency support like food parcels; and measures to reduce bills in the long-term e.g. purchase of household goods, energy-saving advice and devices.   Building connectivity The Department for Work and Pension and the University of Sheffield have complimented the breadth and reach of Hackney’s Household Support Fund programme, early results from the University of Sheffield evaluation suggest that we need to improve connectivity between the different parts of the programme and improve relationships and referral routes between organisations and services involved in supporting residents facing financial hardship to enable residents to obtain the support they need quickly and prevent them falling into deeper crisis. We acknowledge a crisis response programme such as this cannot solve these long-term, systemic issues. We will seek to use these resources to build relationships between services and encourage greater collaboration.   Eligibility: This funding is for people facing financial hardship e.g. those struggling to meet the cost of food and fuel. We will focus resources on groups we know to be at greater risk of poverty such as families with children, disabled, and older residents.   Consistency The HSF programme has evolved over the past four years. We have built trusted relationships with services and partners. Given the short-term funding available it makes sense to continue the programme along broadly similar lines as at present.    Timeliness: To ensure continuity we will need to start delivering our new programme on or near the start of October.   Avoiding a funding ‘cliff edge’ for residents, services and partners This funding, though welcome, is only for six months. We have to assume that the programme will end in March 2025 and will need to ensure we avoid a funding cliff-edge for residents and services.   Continuity: Taking forward work we have started with schools, Adults and Children’s Social Care, GP’s, housing and other frontline services.   Governance:  Options on governance for the wider poverty reduction work, including a board that provides oversight and steer, are being developed in alignment with the emerging Equality Plan governance and will incorporate HSF programme reporting.   Mitigating the impact of Universal Credit migration From April 2024, around 15,000 Hackney households on legacy benefits such as Income Support and Tax Credits will be migrated to Universal Credit. Residents stand to lose entitlement if they fail to comply with the instructions in their migration letter. In addition, the Council and RSLs stand to lose revenues if housing benefits are not claimed. We are working with the DWP to ensure the right kind of information and support is in place to meet the needs of Hackney’s diverse communities. We will use some of this allocation to ensure all our communities are properly informed about the move to Universal Credit and that they receive the support they need to migrate successfully.   Capturing learning We want to ensure that we continue to use this programme to deepen our learning about poverty, its causes and most impactful mitigations. We will sharpen our focus on quantitative and qualitative data collection. This will feed into the programme evaluation which will help inform future service design and commissioning.   As of 18/09/24 we are yet to receive guidance from the DWP on use of this round of Household Support Funding, so this programme is set up on the assumption that the guidance will not result in any significant changes to the principles and approach taken for HSF 5. We will continue to provide updates on the programme via the OFP report submissions including any notable changes to guidance, including if specific portions of funding towards administration costs are indicated. The recommendation at 3.2 is therefore included so that Hackney has the flexibility to respond to any changes in scheme requirements set out in guidance from Government and to respond to delivery factors (eg take up) to ensure that the impact of monies are maximised locally.   In April this year, we also revisited a prioritisation exercise conducted in preparation for the Household Support Fund programme in 2022 and the summary of issues raised during the recent consultation on the Council’s Equality Plan to check whether there were any groups whose needs were not being addressed in our plans. We have tried to develop interventions to address these needs in the last HSF programme that ran from April to September 2024 and will continue this work in this programme.   Groups identified through the prioritisation exercise   ·  People living in the private rented sector and those renting from registered social landlords ·  Residents facing life-changing events, especially the death of a close relative ·  Older people ·  Disabled residents and carers ·  People with No Recourse to Public Funds with children or those at risk of serious health issues ·  People in insecure work ·  Linguistically or digitally excluded communities ·  Making the best use of the data provided to us by the Government   Groups identified through the Equality Plan consultation   ·  People experiencing or fleeing Domestic Violence ·  People with Sickle Cell Anaemia and Thalassemia ·  People who misuse drugs and alcohol ·  People with sensory impairments (visually and hearing impaired people) ·  LGBTQIA+ residents ·  Refugees and migrants who are disabled, have children or are LGBTQIA+ or those from communities where there is less public sympathy e.g. Syrians, Turkish and Kurdish ·  Young offenders who have experienced the youth justice system struggling with insecure employment ·  Neurodiverse people struggling to get into employment ·  The Turkish and Kurdish community ·  Residents experiencing domestic violence   Proposed HSF 6 Programme (October 2024 - March 2025)   We have used the information and insights above, and discussions with colleagues from across the Council and wider system to devise the following HSF programme for October 2024 to March 2025.   Children and families 0-19: Allocation: £1,490,930   This funding provides holiday food support to families claiming free school meals in state-maintained colleges, schools and children's centres and food support to children in the Orthodox Jewish community via 11 community organisations (see appendix 2 for details of organisations funded). We are proposing to utilise up to £151,990 of the allocation to support increasing the provision of wrap around support and advice to schools in the borough.   Vulnerable people known to the Council: Allocation £221,000   This funding will enable the Council to make one-off crisis payments to residents known to Adult Social Care, Children’s Social Care and the Temporary and Supported Accommodation service, These include disabled, and older adults and carers known to Adult Social Care, children in need, foster carers and special guardians known to Children’s Social Services, Refugees staying in hotels in Hackney recently granted the right to remain in the UK and residents living in temporary and supported accommodation in need of financial support. These are all groups known to be at risk of financial hardship.   Breaking down the barriers to reach a wider group of vulnerable residents who are at risk of poverty: Allocation £760,500   Our Poverty Reduction Framework and subsequent analysis of groups at risk of financial hardship (outlined above) identified a wide range of groups that we need to reach. In some cases, they face multiple barriers to accessing help, such as learning disability or language needs, or they would not access help from the Council because of stigma or lack of trust in statutory services.   This includes funding for crisis payments via Money Hub (£250,000) and through Trusted referral partners - Council and health services such as Hackney Works, the Leaving Care Service, Health Visiting and Social Prescribing can refer residents they know to be in financial hardship for one-off crisis payment (£125,000), support with food, fuel and other essentials from smaller voluntary and community sector organisations via Hackney Giving (£150,000), support with household goods (£50,000), Community infrastructure organisations (£45,500), Citizens Advice (£35,000), Food banks and low-cost shops (£70,000), Purchase and distribution of energy saving packs (£25,000), and providing lunch vouchers via Libraries events (£10,000).   Advice-based initiatives: Allocation: £151,250   This part of the allocation will be used to fund the provision of welfare benefits and financial advice in a range of settings across the borough to accompany the crisis support residents will be receiving from this programme to help them achieve longer-term financial stability.   Programme management and administration: Allocation: £167,687   This funding will be used to support programme management, administration and communication with residents and partner organisations. The current projected administration costs sit at 7.07% of the budget.   DETAILS OF ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS CONSIDERED AND REJECTED   We considered reopening an open competition process to allocate this funding. However, the coordination and implementation of this approach in such a short timescale was potentially high risk and unachievable. Working with trusted partners who can mobilise quick responses to requests for help and where we are already aware of need, was considered the most effective response.   We considered allocating lower administration and management fees, but the tight timescales and targeted nature of the grants will put pressure on organisations already stretched by the response to the Cost of Living Crisis. Failure to recognise the costs of managing and administering these grants is potentially destabilising for organisations, who we have approached to work with us.