Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 31 December 2024
The quarterly update of Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics for October to December 2024. This includes quarterly statistics on Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants from 2019 onwards.
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During October to December 2024, a larger proportion of Crisis Grants applications and awards were repeats (70% and 61%, respectively), compared to Community Care Grants (26% and 9%, respectively) (Tables 41-44, Chart 11).
Compared to the same quarter in 2023, the rates of repeat Community Care Grant applications and awards were both three percentage points lower. The rate of Crisis Grants repeat applications and awards decreased by one and two percentage points respectively.
The rates of repeat Crisis Grant applications and awards declined slightly after the highs seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2023 were even higher. Increased rates of repeat applications and awards may be due to individuals continuing to experience financial hardship, at least partly due to the increased cost of living. Recent quarters have seen slightly lower rates of repeats as budgets have tightened.
Chart 11: Repeat applications and awards for Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants – Quarterly
This chart shows time series of the numbers of repeat applications and awards to the Scottish Welfare Fund per quarter since April 2019, separated into the two schemes.