Charity slates Universal Credit as 23,000 Scots need grants

Struggling Scots needed emergency grants totalling more than £2 million to help them cover the costs of heating, eating and other basic living costs in the last three months of 2017.

Councils handed out crisis grants worth £2,235,562 to a total of 23,150 hard-up households – with 9% more people receiving help compared with a year ago. The grants are distributed as part of the Scottish Welfare Fund, with the number of recipients up from 14,835 in the final quarter of 2013, the first year of the scheme.

A total of £7.7m was handed out through the fund from October to December 2017, with more than £5.5m going on Community Care Grants, which help families facing exceptional pressures with one-off costs such as a cooker or washing machine.

The figures come after the Trussell Trust revealed it handed out a record 170,625 emergency food parcels in Scotland in 2017-18.

Crisis grants for food worth more than £1.2 million were paid out from October to December last year.

About one in eight crisis grants were needed because of delays in benefits payments.

Alison Watson, deputy director of homelessness charity Shelter Scotland, said: “While it is good news the fund exists and is a vital safety net for so many households – a third of them with children – much more needs to be done to resolve the underlying issues to create a fairer and more just society for everyone in Scotland.

“Halting the roll out of the flawed Universal Credit system until it is fixed and a major increase in the supply of truly affordable housing in places where people want to live would be a good start.”