Minutes:
Councillor O Temple
To its credit, despite government having withdrawn the direct grant for Welfare Assistance in 2015, Durham County Council has continued each year to budget £860,000 to help residents in crisis with short term support through Daily Living Expenses, or to live on their own through Settlement Grants.
Unfortunately, however, in recent years only around half of this money has been allocated to individuals in need, with the balance allocated to employability schemes and AAPs.
With the roll-out of Universal Credit now happening across the county, what steps are the council taking to ensure that the whole Welfare Assistance budget is utilised for the relief of hard-pressed individuals and families, and in particular what steps will be taken to make the application process more accessible?
Councillor K Shaw, Portfolio Holder for Strategic Housing and Assets thanked Councillor Temple for his question and provided the following response on behalf of Councillor J Brown, Portfolio Holder for Social Inclusion.
As stated previously by Cllr Surtees in responding to the question from the AAP, residents of the County continued to struggle with the Government’s ongoing programme for welfare reform and the lasting impacts of the recession in our area.
With the roll out of Universal Credit having already started in in Peterlee and Seaham in October this year, it was important that the Council understood the impact on local people and provide support wherever possible.
The Council continued to provide a budget of £1m for its welfare assistance scheme despite government funding for the scheme being withdrawn. Many other councils had cut this vital support, but the Council had so far been able to continue to support the most vulnerable people in County Durham.
Since 2013 over 2,800 residents had benefitted from a settlement grant award and over 5,330 residents had received a daily living expense award. The scheme was kept under review and sought ways to ensure the scheme was as accessible as possible for those who needed it. Recent changes had been made to provide additional support for those affected by Universal Credit.
Feedback on the scheme from those the Council had helped had been very positive and the recent change to the provision of food baskets from Asda had been particularly welcome.
The Council was planning to undertake further communications amongst its front line teams and partners to ensure everyone was aware and could access the support available easily and with the minimum fuss. The Council was also promoting the scheme through its Advice in County Durham Partnership so that all advice agencies remained fully aware of the scheme.
If the annual budget for the Welfare Assistance Scheme was not fully spent in a particular financial year, the full budget remained available to help those in need, with any underspends carried forward in an earmarked reserve to augment the following years’ budget allocation.
The Welfare Assistance Scheme budget was overseen by the Councils Poverty Action Steering Group and any requests for funding from this budget must clearly demonstrate that the funds would be used to assist ‘hard pressed’ individuals and families with immediate help or longer term support.
As an example, the Welfare Assistance Scheme fund was used to provide immediate help to residents struggling to meet their housing costs, by topping up the council’s Discretionary Housing Payments grant budget by £118,000 in 2016/17.
The Welfare Assistance Scheme budget had also funded a qualified Energy Efficiency Advisor for three years to help residents improve residents’ financial situations by ensuring they were not over paying on energy costs.
Funding had also been provided for an employment and employability initiatives which supported individuals by helping them become closer the employment market, or to assist those who would like to explore self-employment as a route to improving their life chances and achieving a positive outcome.
Since 2014, over 745 people had been supported into employment; over 700 residents had undertaken skills training; over 180 wage subsidies had helped business create positions for residents to be able to gain employment; and over 60 residents had set up their own businesses.
No resident had been turned away due to lack of funds in this County and the Council was hopeful this would never be the case. The revised scheme would be in operation for April next year and the Council would continue to monitor and collect feedback to ensure the scheme was available and accessible to those who needed it.
Councillor Temple thanked Councillor Shaw for his response and asked whether, if this year, the Council did not manage to get more money into the hands of individuals, this would be seen as a failure of the Scheme.
Councillor Shaw replied that he would take this to the Portfolio Holder to provide a response.
The Chairman concluded the meeting by wishing all a Merry Christmas and New Year.