I am writing under the Freedom of Information Act to kindly request information relating to your allocation of the fourth tranche of the Household Support Fund.
Please see our list of questions attached, and pasted below, and thank you in advance for your assistance.
1. Please provide us with a copy of the management information return you are required to provide to the DWP for tranche four of the Household Support Fund.
2. Please provide a breakdown of how tranche four was spent:
(a) Targeted Grants (by targeted grants we mean any direct grants/proactive support given to households that did not need to be applied)
(b) Free School Meal Holiday Vouchers
(c) Direct applications to the scheme (this means the amount that was open to application, but not through your local welfare assistance scheme)
(d) Local Welfare Assistance Scheme
(e) Voluntary and Community Sector Organisations
(f) Advice Services
(g) Other (please clarify)
3.
(a) If you accepted applications to this fund how many did you receive?
(b) How many applications were successful?
4. Excluding funding given to local welfare schemes or third-party organisations, how much of the HSF did you spend on helping people with furniture and appliances?
5. How much did you spend on:
(a) Vouchers
(b) Cash awards
(c) Third party organisations
(d) In kind furniture support
(e) In kind support for other purposes
(f) Other
6. How much do you plan to spend on free school meal vouchers in the holidays in 2024/25? If HSF is not renewed in September, will you continue with the vouchers for the second half of the year? And if so, how will you be funding it?
7. Did you take on additional staff for HSF 4 and if so are these staff likely to be retained for HSF 5?
8. To what extent does the short notice of the availability of funding inhibit the planning and delivery activity of HSF (e.g. internal finance and policy decision making, resource requirements, engagement with internal departments and external partners)?
9. When HSF 5 ends, what do you expect the impact to be on:
• Resources
• Local Welfare Provision scheme
• External partner agencies
• Communities
If you have any further comments about local welfare support or the Household Support Fund, please share it here.
I would like my comments to remain anonymous: Yes/No