Super Sponsor Scheme and Homes for Ukraine: guidance for local authorities

Funding

UK Government funding

Homes for Ukraine General Tariff Grant

The UK Government has made available a tariff to councils to support local authorities to provide wraparound support to individuals and families to rebuild their lives and fully integrate into communities.

In year one, local authorities will receive £10,500 per person for Ukrainians who arrived in the UK before 1 January 2023 and £5,900 per person for those arriving from 1 January 2023. Tariff funding applies to all arrivals under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, including arrivals under the Super Sponsor Scheme.

The UK Government state that this funding will match the tariff offered under the first year of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP).

This funding package should support:

• the provision of education: local authorities are required to provide school places for children of school age. This funding tariff is set out below
• service referrals: where necessary, local authorities should provide advice and referrals to specialist public health services as appropriate e.g. mental health services, adult social care and children’s services. Further advice will be provided in due course
• work and benefits: local authorities should support guests to access local Jobcentre Plus appointments for benefit assessments and job-seeking, including any additional benefits enabled by Social Security Scotland
• homelessness assistance: there may be cases where the host / guest relationship breaks down and the guest is at risk of homelessness. This would trigger the local authorities standard homelessness duties which arise under sections 31 (persons found homeless) and section 32(2) (threatened with homelessness) of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 
• community integration: local authorities and their partners will play a key role in the integration of Ukrainian families into their local communities. Integration might include ESOL provision, access to translation services, community events, using community champions, interfaith groups and helping to sign post support

The UK Government have also confirmed that local authorities have discretion to use tariff funding in any other way to support Ukrainian displaced people.

Local authorities are to use the tariff to meet all of their associated costs, both for providing council services and for administering payments. The UK Government will also, under exceptional circumstances, consider claims for costs above and beyond what could reasonably be regarded as normal expenditure and not available through other mainstream funding mechanisms. The UK Government has been clear this will be on an exceptional basis only.

The local authority where the welcome accommodation is located is asked to provide an interim payment (in line with other resettlement schemes) of £200 per guest for subsistence costs on their initial arrival into Scotland. The £200 payment is factored into the tariff paid to the council and does not need to be repaid by the guest. Local authorities will also have discretion within the tariff to top-up or further support guests with interim or additional payments. Working age guests will be able to apply to receive Universal Credit and will be able to apply for advance payments where eligible (these need to be paid back by the recipient). Pension age guests will be able to apply for State Pension Credit and Housing Benefit provided they meet eligibility criteria, and Scottish Housing Discretionary Housing Payments if the eligibility criteria is met.

Sponsors are eligible for a monthly thank you payment from the UK government. The tariff and the ‘thank you’ payments will go direct to local authorities, except where the Scottish Government has hosted the displaced person(s) in hotel accommodation for over 14 days, in which case the thank you payment should be paid direct to Scottish Government from the UK Government.

Gov.uk have published more information on funding under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme.

Scottish Government funding

Scotland received £30 million from the UK-wide allocation of £150 million to help support displaced people into longer-term settled accommodation into their own homes, preventing homelessness, and to provide on-going employability and wider integration support, advice and coordination.

This funding can support people into their own homes to prevent homelessness, and to provide on-going employment and wider integration support, advice and coordination. This funding will be passed on in full to local authorities. Allocations have been calculated and published at the following link: Ukraine resettlement: letter to local authorities about funding.

We also committed to investing over £100 million from our budget to ensure Ukrainians continue to receive a Warm Scots Welcome and are supported to rebuild their lives in our communities for as long as they need to call Scotland their home. This builds on the funding of over £200 million already provided to support the Ukrainian Resettlement programme in 2022 to 2023.

As part of spending commitments for 2023 to 2024, we will provide £3.2 million to support staffing of local authority resettlement teams, which maintains the funding level provided the previous year. This funding has been made available to all local authorities to increase the capacity of their resettlement teams (or equivalent) for the support of Ukrainian displaced people, support for refurbishment costs for properties used to house displaced people, and to cover costs of supporting them to settle into local communities not already addressed by alternative funding sources.

More information relating to costs which can be claimed as part of the Scottish Government funding can be found in the ’Data flow and checks’ chapter.

Ukranian Longer Term Resettlement Fund

£50 million has been approved for the Longer Term Resettlement Fund, to boost the supply of available accommodation to support the longer term resettlement of displaced people. By improving and bringing void homes back into use these homes are intended to temporarily rehouse Ukrainian displaced people for a period of up to three years. 

More information including criteria for funding, costs and the application process can be found in the Ukraine Longer Term Resettlement Fund guidance.