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Scottish Parliament election: 7 May. This site won't be routinely updated during the pre-election period.

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.


91% of Community Care Grant applications were processed within the target time of 15 working days in 2024-25. This is an increase of seven percentage points compared to 2023-24 (Table 14, Chart 4). In the latest quarter, processing times varied by local authority, from 46% in Falkirk to 100% in ten local authorities: Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Na-h Eileanan Siar, Inverclyde, Midlothian, Moray, Orkney, and Shetland (Table 15).

96% of Crisis Grant applications were processed within the target time of the next working day in 2024-25, the same as in 2023-24 (Table 17, Chart 5). In the latest quarter, processing times varied from 81% in Falkirk to 100% in twelve local authorities: Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Na-h Eileanan Siar, Fife, Midlothian, Orkney, Perth & Kinross, and South Lanarkshire (Table 18).

It is possible that cases are currently missing from the dataset used to produce this publication due to delays in processing or late returns, or due to cases being awarded in principle or ‘pending’ on local authority systems. It is therefore possible that estimates of the proportion processed within target times could change for the latest quarter in subsequent publications.

Chart 4: Initial Processing Times for Community Care Grants – Quarterly
This chart shows time series of the proportion of CCG applications within the processing time target per quarter since April 2020.
Chart 4

Chart 5: Initial Processing Times for Crisis Grants – Quarterly
This chart shows time series of the proportion of Crisis applications within the processing time target per quarter since April 2020.
Chart 5

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