Residents paid £588k from crisis cash fund

CRISIS funds totalling £588,084 were dished out in Halton during the last financial year to help residents struggling with anything from the ‘bedroom tax’ to buying a fridge.

The cash is awarded by Government and administered by Halton Borough Council, which has now revealed how it is spent.

For the discretionary support scheme (DSS) in 2017-18, the biggest number of requests related for money to eat, with 396 grants approved for two weeks of food for an adult, followed by 252 sets of curtains, then 251 food grants for a child aged nine years or under.

Fuel accounted for 208 of the funding awarded.

Numerous requests were approved for household items such as 171 for unspecified kitchen equipment, 177 for a single bed and 152 for a sofa.

There were also 56 grants for bedding, 27 for washing machines and 60 for packs of toiletries.

Smaller scale requests include five fridges, six vegetarian food bids, and 13 for gluten-free or nutfree food packs.

There were also nine applications for double beds.

Most referrals for crisis cash were made by the Department For Work And Pensions, followed by word-of-mouth.

More than half of all the requests, 1,771 or approximately two thirds of the total, were rejected, with the main reason being based on bids not meeting the criteria or other support being available.

There were 147 applications turned down because the application was not a Halton resident, and 88 had been sanctioned.

A report published for Halton Council’s corporate policy and performance board said about 863 requests were successful, representing £175,317 in crisis grants.

Under the similar discretionary housing payment (DHP) scheme, £412,767 was awarded to 1,403 separate requests.

The biggest contributing factor to this was reduced rents due to under-occupancy, known as the ‘bedroom tax’, which required £258,939.

The benefits cap led to £46,628 being paid, £22,660 was spent plugging gaps left by Local Housing Allowance reform and £84,540 was assigned to ‘other’ needs.

Roll-out of Universal Credit was blamed for an increase in DHP payments from 2016-17, when £379,974 was spent, meaning the DHP bill increased year on year by £32,793, or 8.63%.