Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 31 March 2026
The annual update of Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics for 2025-26. This includes annual statistics on Community Care Grants and Crisis grants from 2013, as well as quarterly breakdowns from 2021.
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89% of Community Care Grant applications were processed within the target time of 15 working days in 2025-26. This is a decrease of 2 percentage points compared to 2024-25 (Table 14, Chart 4). In the latest quarter, processing times varied by local authority, from 59% in Aberdeen to 100% in six local authorities: Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, East Ayrshire, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and Orkney (Table 15).
98% of Crisis Grant applications were processed within the target time of the next working day in 2025-26, an increase of two percentage points compared to 2024-25 (Table 17, Chart 5). In the latest quarter, processing times varied from 78% in Shetland to 100% in nine local authorities: Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, Edinburgh, Fife, Inverclyde, Midlothian and Orkney (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 2021.
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 2021.