Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 31 December 2025

Unless otherwise stated, all expenditure information in this publication is based on the date of decision. As such it should be regarded as committed spend, rather than actual spend. Where a case has been reviewed, expenditure is assigned to the quarter of the initial decision rather than the review date. Further discussion of expenditure data quality is included in the Data Quality section of the publication.

Local authorities submit monthly management information returns to the Scottish Government. These returns also contain expenditure information on Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants. Chart 8 shows that expenditure recorded in the quarterly monitoring matches closely with the information in the monthly returns at Scotland level.

During October to December 2025, £12.5 million was spent through the Scottish Welfare Fund, 16% more (£1.7 million) than the same quarter in 2024 (Table 23, Chart 8). More was spent on Community Care Grants (£7.2 million) than on Crisis Grants (£5.3 million). Compared to the same quarter of 2024, Community Care Grant expenditure increased in 16 local authorities, while Crisis Grant expenditure increased in 31 local authorities (Table 23). These changes may be due in part to the additional funding provided in early 2025, and, for Crisis Grants, the addition of the UC Essentials Guarantee to the statutory guidance which sets out the rates at which these grants should be paid.

Chart 8: Expenditure on the Scottish Welfare Fund – Comparison of official statistics and monthly management information – Scotland – Monthly
This chart shows the time series of the expenditure on CCG and Crisis Grants per quarter since April 2021.

Local authorities have been allocated £41.0 million for Scottish Welfare Fund awards in 2025-26. There was also an estimated underspend of £10.0 million carried forward (see the Data Quality section for issues relating to estimation of underspend). An additional £17.5 million was allocated to local authorities during 2024-25, and in many authorities, this was only partially spent before year end, leading to the large carry-over to 2025-26. A further £5.5 million was allocated to the fund during 2025-26. Local authorities had spent £38.4 million by the end of December 2025, representing 75% of the estimated available budget. At this point in the year, if spending were consistent in each quarter we would expect local authorities to have spent 75% of their available budgets. In comparison, by the end of December 2024, local authorities had spent £33.6 million, representing 61% of the available budget, although that was before the infusion of addition funding – the proportion spent was reported as 87% at the time (Table 24, Table 26, Chart 9 and Chart 10).

The lowest percentage of budget spent (including estimated previous underspend) was in Na-h Eileanan Siar (15%). The highest were Perth & Kinross (142%), Fife (115%), and East Renfrewshire (110%). Fourteen local authorities had spent at least 75% of their estimated available budgets and therefore may be on track to spend all of their available budget for 2025-26 at current rates of expenditure (Table 26, Chart 9).

Chart 9: Proportion of 2024-25 budget spent as at 31 December 2025
This chart shows the proportion of budget spent during 2025-26 by local authority.

Chart 10 shows how much of their estimated budget each local authority had spent at the end of December. If local authority spending continue at this rate to the end of the year, it would result in £6.5 million overspend across 15 local authorities and £6.3 million underspend across the other 17 local authorities.

Chart 10: Cumulative expenditure on the Scottish Welfare Fund – Monthly – 2025-26
This chart shows the time series of the expenditure throughout 2025-26 in comparison to a theoretical steady budget-only spend.