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.
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During October to December 2025, a larger proportion of Crisis Grants applications and awards were repeats (70% and 62%, respectively), compared to Community Care Grants (27% and 12%, respectively) (Tables 42-45, Chart 11).
Compared to the same quarter in 2024, the rate of repeat Community Care Grant applications and awards increased by one and two percentage points respectively. The rate of Crisis Grants repeat applications was unchanged, and the rate of awards was one percentage point higher.
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, although they’ve now stabilised at a lower level. 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.
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 2021, separated into the two schemes.