Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 31 March 2025
The annual update of Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics for 2024-25. This includes annual statistics on Community Care Grants and Crisis grants from 2013, as well as quarterly breakdowns from 2020.
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Decisions were made on 80,465 Community Care Grant applications in 2024-25 and 37,695 awards were made, representing an acceptance rate of 47% (Table 19), the same as in 2023-24 (Table 23). At the same time, decisions were made on 245,300 Crisis Grant applications in 2024-25 and 153,260 awards were made with an acceptance rate of 62% (Table 24), the same as in 2023-24. (Table 28).
The highest Community Care Grant acceptance rate was in Inverclyde (76%), and the lowest was in Midlothian (33%). Compared to 2023-24, acceptance rates increased in 16 local authorities, decreased in 14 and stayed the same in two (Table 23). The highest Crisis Grant acceptance rate was in Inverclyde (84%) and the lowest was in Shetland (42%). Compared to 2023-24, acceptance rates increased in 18 local authorities, decreased in 11 and stayed the same in three (Table 28).
Increasing pressure on budgets has weighed on acceptance rates, which have fallen in most quarters since 2021 (Table 22, Table 27, Chart 6). However, rates have steadily increased for Crisis Grants over the past year, and the recent additional funding encouraged a jump in the rate for Community Care Grants in the latest quarter to over 50% for the first time since April-June 2023.
Chart 6: Community Care Grant and Crisis Grant acceptance rates – Quarterly
This chart shows the time series of the rate of CCG and Crisis awards per quarter since April 2020.
The number of Community Care Grants awarded in 2024-25 (37,695 awards) was 10% lower (3,970 awards) than in 2023-24; and the number of Crisis Grants awarded in 2021 (153,260 awards) was 5% lower (7,420 awards) than in 2023-24 (Table 21, Table 26).
During the year, numbers of Crisis Grant awards were relatively steady compared to recent years, although the usual post-Christmas peak was evident, if less-pronounced than usual (Chart 7). The number of Community Care Grant awards was also broadly stable through the year. The usual drop seen around the last quarter of the calendar year was less obvious, and the uptick after new funding was announced can be seen in the most recent quarter.
Chart 7: Number of Scottish Welfare Fund Awards – Scotland – Monthly
This chart shows the time series of the number of CCG and Crisis awards per month since April 2020.
At local authority level, the greatest increase in Community Care Grant awards compared to 2023-24 was in East Renfrewshire (24% increase) (Table 21). The greatest decreases were in Edinburgh and North Lanarkshire (-34%). The greatest increase in Crisis Grant awards was in Falkirk (32% increase) (Table 26, Table 6). The greatest decrease was in Dundee (-27%).
In 2024-25, the most common reason for Community Care Grant application rejections remained ‘Reasons for application do not meet the conditions for an award’ (60%) (Table 30), and the most common reason for Crisis Grant application rejections remained ‘Excluded as a result of previous application history’ (25%) (Table 32).