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Policy actions  8 of 12

Scottish Welfare Fund

We created the Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF) to provide a safety net for people on low incomes. It is a national scheme that helps Scottish households in need.

Between April 2013 and June 2018, the SWF helped 306,305 individual households with awards totaling £173 million. A third of households were families with children, while just over half were single-person households with no children.

There are two types of grants in the Scottish Welfare Fund:

Crisis Grants

These aim to help people on a low-income who are in crisis because of a disaster (such as a fire or a flood) or an emergency (such as where money has been lost or an unexpected expense has arisen).

Community Care Grants

These aim to help vulnerable people set up home or continue to live independently within their community. They are specifically aimed at:

  • families under exceptional pressure
  • people following a period of care or homelessness
  • people continue to live independently where there's a risk of care or homelessness
  • people meet additional costs associated with looking after someone on temporary release from prison or a young offenders' institution

Find more information on the Scottish Welfare Fund and how to apply on mygov.scot.

Guidance

We produced the Scottish Welfare Fund: statutory guidance to provide a framework for decision makers that would promote consistency in decision making.

Because the SWF is a discretionary grant scheme, this guidance does not cover all eventualities. It is intended to support decision makers to meet the underlying objectives of the Fund.

Statistics

We also produce quarterly statistics on the Scottish Welfare Fund. These publications contain:

  • the number of applications and awards for Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants
  • the processing times for applications
  • what the Scottish Welfare Fund has been spent on and household analyses
  • local authority analyses and details of the review process

Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff. Find more information on the standards of official statistics in Scotland.

Budget allocation for local authorities

In the first three years of the SWF, we provided local authorities with an annual grant of £38 million with which to fund Crisis Grants and Community Care Grants.

In 2016 we agreed with COSLA to determine distribution based on the Income Domain of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, so that funding would align with the needs of the most vulnerable communities. This approach is being phased in over three years, as follows:

  • 2016 to 2017 – 80% SWF spend to date, 20% Income Domain
  • 2017 to 2018 – average (SWF spend to date and Income Domain)
  • 2018 to 2019 – 100% Income Domain

Any money not used in 2015 to 2016 was rolled forward to the SWF budget for 2016 to 2017. Full details of SWF spend from April 2013 to June 2016 can be found in the quarterly statistics.

Budget allocation tables