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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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 well with the information in the monthly returns at Scotland level until March 2025.
Between 1 January and 31 March 2025, £13.1 million was spent through the Scottish Welfare Fund, 13% more than in January to March 2023 when £11.6 million was spent (Table 39, Chart 8). Expenditure on Community Care Grants increased by 22% (£8.3 million compared to £6.8 million) and expenditure on Crisis Grants decreased by 1% (£4.7 million compared to £4.8 million).
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 2020.
During 2024-25, the available budget for awards in 2024-25 was £56.1 million, which included £53.0 million allocated by Scottish Government and £3.2 million of underspend carried forward from 2023-24 (Table 40). A total of £46.6 million was spent on Scottish Welfare Fund awards during 2024-25 (Table 38), including £29.1 million on Community Care Grants (Table 34) and £17.4 million on Crisis Grants (Table 36). This is an overall decrease in expenditure of 7%, with Community Care Grant expenditure decreasing by 8% and Crisis Grant expenditure decreasing by 6% respectively compared to 2023-24.
The overall budget was supplemented in the final quarter by an additional £17.5 million, and this boosted acceptance rates during that period. Without this funding, most local authorities would have been overspent for the year.
Expenditure on Community Care Grants increased in 12 local authorities, the greatest relative increase being in East Renfrewshire (57% increase, Table 34). Expenditure decreased in 20 local authorities, the greatest relative decrease occurring in North Lanarkshire (49% decrease). Expenditure on Crisis Grants increased in 15 local authorities, the greatest relative increase being in Falkirk (56%, Table 36). Expenditure decreased in 17 local authorities, with the greatest relative decrease in Dundee (30% decrease).
The average award value for Community Care Grants increased from £760 in 2023-24 to £773 in 2024-25. The average award value for Crisis Grants decreased from £115 in 2023-24 to £114 in 2024-25.
Expenditure compared to budget:
As a whole, local authorities spent 83% of the available budget (the amount allocated by Scottish Government plus underspend from previous years) (Table 42, Chart 9). In comparison, at the end of 2023-24 130% of the available budget had been spent, although the budget available for the Scottish Welfare Fund in 2023-24 was £17.4 million lower than in 2024-25 (Table 40, Table 42).
Expenditure varied considerably between the local authorities. Twenty-two local authorities spent less than 90% of their budgets in 2024-25 compared to five in 2023-24, showing the effect of the additional funding. The local authorities that had spent the smallest proportions of their budgets were Na-h Eileanan Siar (18%), Highland (33%) and North Ayrshire (48%). Collective underspend for the year was £11.6 million, more than at the end of 2023-24 (£3.2million).
Four local authorities spent more than their budget (Table 42, Chart 9): Perth and Kinross (145%), Fife (137%), East Renfrewshire (133%), and Midlothian (109%). In total local authorities overspent their available budgets for 2024-25 by around £2.0 million, £12.6 million less than the overspend for 2023-24 (£14.6 million, Table 40).
Chart 9: Proportion of 2024-25 budget spent as at 31 March 2025
This chart shows the proportion of budget spent during 2024-25 by local authority.
Chart 10 shows that the overall rate of spending only increased in the final quarter as additional funds were released to local authorities; this wiped out what would have been an overspend.
The additional allocation of funds, which was received by local authorities during the final quarter of the year, left an underspend at year end of £11.6 million. Any underspend has carried over into the next financial year, easing pressure on local authority budgets during 2025-26.
Chart 10: Cumulative expenditure on the Scottish Welfare Fund – Monthly – 2024-25
This chart shows the time series of the expenditure throughout 2024-25 in comparison to a theoretical steady budget-only spend.