Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 30 June 2024

In the latest quarter, local authorities awarded households a total of £11.6 million in Scottish Welfare Fund grants. More than a third of households receiving an award were families with children, while more than half were single person households with no children.

During April to June 2024, local authorities received 20,595 applications for Community Care Grants, a decrease of 6% compared to April to June 2023. At the same time, local authorities made 9,480 Community Care Grant awards, a decrease of 17%, spending £7.2 million, a decrease of 19% compared to April to June 2023. Local authorities received 63,340 Crisis Grant applications in April to June 2024, roughly the same as April to June 2023. At the same time, local authorities made 38,765 Crisis Grant awards, a 3% decrease, spending £4.4 million, 5% less than in April to June 2023.

During April to June 2024, 11% of Community Care Grant awards were repeats, and 60% of Crisis Grant awards were repeats, four and five percentage points lower respectively than April to June 2023.

From April to June 2024, 94% of Community Care Grant applications and 97% of Crisis Grant applications were processed within target times.

Local authorities have been allocated £35.5 million for Scottish Welfare Fund awards in 2024-25. There was also an estimated underspend of £3.1 million carried forward from 2023-24. Of the estimated total £38.6 million available for awards, £11.6 million (30%) had been spent in the first three months of the year.

We have previously highlighted data quality issues with the official statistics, discrepancies between the official statistics and management information, and quality issues for certain local authorities (described in the data quality section).