Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 31 December 2024
The quarterly update of Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics for June to December 2024. This includes quarterly statistics on Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants from 2019 onwards.
In the latest quarter, local authorities awarded households a total of £10.7 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 October to December 2024, local authorities received 18,090 applications for Community Care Grants, a decrease of 15% compared to October to December 2023. At the same time, local authorities made 8,825 Community Care Grant awards, spending £6.7 million, decreases of 14% and 13% respectively compared to October to December 2023. Local authorities received 55,865 Crisis Grant applications in October to December 2024, a decrease of 7% compared to October to December 2023. At the same time, local authorities made 35,535 Crisis Grant awards, a 4% decrease, spending £4.0 million, 5% less than in October to December 2023.
During October to December 2024, 9% of Community Care Grant awards were repeats, and 61% of Crisis Grant awards were repeats, three and two percentage points lower, respectively, than October to December 2023.
From October to December 2024, 86% 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 2024-25. There was also an estimated underspend of £3.1 million carried forward from 2023-24. Of the estimated total £38.6 million available for awards, £33.6 million (87%) had been spent in the first nine months of the year.
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).