Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 30 June 2025

In the latest quarter, local authorities awarded households a total of £13.4 million in Scottish Welfare Fund grants. More than a third of awards were made to families with children, while more than half were made to single person households with no children.

During April to June 2025, local authorities received 19,070 applications for Community Care Grants, a decrease of 9% compared to April to June 2024. At the same time, local authorities made 10,575 Community Care Grant awards, spending £8.3 million, increases of 12% and 16% respectively compared to April to June 2024. Local authorities received 61,540 Crisis Grant applications in April to June 2025, a decrease of 4% compared to April to June 2024. At the same time, local authorities made 40,315 Crisis Grant awards, a 3% increase, spending £5.1 million, 15% more than in April to June 2024.

During April to June 2025, 11% of Community Care Grant awards were repeats, and 60% of Crisis Grant awards were repeats, no change from April to June 2024.

From April to June 2025, 88% of Community Care Grant applications and 97% of Crisis Grant applications were processed within target times.

Local authorities have been allocated £35.5 million for Scottish Welfare Fund awards in 2025-26. There was also an estimated underspend of £11.7 million carried forward from 2024-25. Of the estimated total £47.1 million available for awards, £13.4 million (28%) had been spent in the first three months of the year.

The UC Essentials Guarantee has been added to the statutory guidance for 2025-26, which sets out rates of award for Crisis Grants, and may have increased levels of expenditure on these grants at a higher rate than the increase in the numbers of awards.

We have previously highlighted data quality issues with the official statistics, discrepancies between the official statistics and management information, and quality issues for certain local authorities (described in the data quality section).