Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 31 December 2025
The quarterly update of Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics for October to December 2025. This includes quarterly statistics on Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants from 2021 onwards.
Part of
In the latest quarter, local authorities awarded households a total of £12.5 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 2025, local authorities received 18,975 applications for Community Care Grants, an increase of 1% compared to October to December 2024. At the same time, local authorities made 10,280 Community Care Grant awards, spending £7.2 million, both increases of 16% compared to October to December 2024. Local authorities received 60,755 Crisis Grant applications in October to December 2025, an increase of 8% compared to October to December 2024. At the same time, local authorities made 39,770 Crisis Grant awards, a 12% increase, spending £5.3 million, 30% more than in October to December 2024.
During October to December 2025, 12% of Community Care Grant awards were repeats, and 62% of Crisis Grant awards were repeats, increases of 2% and 1% respectively compared to October to December 2024.
From October to December 2025, 86% of Community Care Grant applications and 98% of Crisis Grant applications were processed within target times.
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 from 2024-25. Of the estimated total £51.0 million available for awards, £38.4 million (75%) had been spent in the first nine months of the year.
The UC Essentials Guarantee, which sets out rates of award for Crisis Grants, was added to the statutory guidance for 2025-26, and this appears to have increased the average value 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).