Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 31 March 2026

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 2026.

In January to March 2026, £13.6 million was spent through the Scottish Welfare Fund, 4% more than in January to March 2025 when £13.1 million was spent (Table 39, Chart 8). Expenditure on Community Care Grants decreased by 13% (£7.2 million compared to £8.3 million) and expenditure on Crisis Grants increased by 33% (£6.3 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 2021.

During 2025-26, the available budget for awards was £51.0 million, which included £41.0 million allocated by Scottish Government and £10.0 million of underspend carried forward from 2024-25 (Table 40). A total of £52.0 million was spent on Scottish Welfare Fund awards during 2025-26 (Table 38), including £30.1 million on Community Care Grants (Table 34) and £21.9 million on Crisis Grants (Table 36). This is an overall increase in expenditure of 11%, with Community Care Grant  expenditure increasing by 3% and Crisis Grant expenditure increasing by 26%,  compared to 2024-25.

The overall budget was supplemented in the latter part of 2025 by an additional £5.5 million. This additional funding enabled many local authorities to stay within budget for the year, and to maintain levels of funding, although numerous authorities overspent despite this. Local authorities are able to supplement their budgets with funds from other sources.

Expenditure on Community Care Grants increased in 17 local authorities, the greatest relative increase being in Edinburgh (96% increase, Table 34). Expenditure decreased in 15 local authorities, the greatest relative decrease occurring in Fife (41% decrease). Expenditure on Crisis Grants increased in all 32 local authorities, the greatest relative increase being in Shetland (150%, Table 36). The smallest relative increase was in Midlothian (6% increase).

The average award value for Community Care Grants decreased from £773 in 2024-25 to £720 in 2025-26. The average award value for Crisis Grants increased from £114 in 2024-25 to £130 in 2025-26, this increase being related to the UC Essentials Guarantee.

Expenditure compared to budget:

As a whole, local authorities spent 102% of the estimated available budget (the amount allocated by Scottish Government plus underspend from previous years) (Table 42, Chart 9). In comparison, at the end of 2024-25 85% of the available budget had been spent, although the budget available for the Scottish Welfare Fund in 2024-25 was £3.7 million higher than in 2025-26 (Table 40, Table 42).

Expenditure varied considerably between the local authorities. Thirteen local authorities spent less than 90% of their estimated budgets in 2025-26 compared to 22 in 2024-25. This illustrates a reduction in available funding compared to the previous year. The local authorities that had spent the smallest proportions of their budgets were Na-h Eileanan Siar (20%), North Ayrshire (44%) and Highland (63%). Collective underspend for the year was £5.9 million, less than at the end of 2024-25 (£10.0 million).

Fourteen local authorities spent more than their budget (Table 42, Chart 9), top spenders being Perth and Kinross (198%), East Renfrewshire (153%), and Fife (149%). In total local authorities overspent their available budgets for 2025-26 by around £6.9 million, £4.8 million more than the overspend for 2024-25 (£2.0 million, Table 40).

Chart 9: Proportion of 2025-26 budget spent as at 31 March 2026
This chart shows the proportion of budget spent during 2025-26 by local authority.

Chart 10 shows that the overall rate of spending was close to budget, although this includes additional funding received during the year. Without additional funding it is likely that there would have been a more overspend and local authorities would have spent less.

Chart 10: Cumulative expenditure on the Scottish Welfare Fund – Monthly – 2025-26
This chart shows the time series of the expenditure throughout 2025-26 in comparison to a theoretical steady budget-only spend.