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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Scottish Welfare Fund awards tend to go to applicants living in more deprived areas of Scotland. Around one in five people in Scotland live in the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland, as defined by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). In 2025-26 around half of Community Care Grants (49%) and Crisis Grants (46%) were awarded to applicants living in these areas. In comparison, around 2% of Community Care Grants and 3% of Crisis Grants were awarded to applicants from the 20% least deprived areas (Table 62 and Table 64).
The amounts received by applicants correlated little with overall deprivation levels of the area where they live during 2025-26; the latest quarter is illustrated below (Chart 12).
Chart 12: Distribution of awards and average award value by SIMD Quintile rankings of applicant’s postcode – January to March 2026
This is a montage of four charts showing how monies have been disbursed between different areas during the latest quarter based on their level of multiple deprivation.