Can local welfare ever be more than a quick fix?
Local welfare is helping thousands of households. Is it up to the job?
As the cost of living soars, people are turning more and more to their local council for help. In 2022, Citizens Advice helped more than 130,000 people get support from their local authority, 23% more than in 2021.
Local welfare helps people with short-term financial support in emergencies and provides extra support to people on low incomes. Local Welfare Assistance Schemes (LWAS) can help people meet one-off expenses in crisis situations. Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) help people meet short-term housing costs (like rent) when other benefits aren’t enough. The Household Support Fund (HSF) is intended to support households finding it hard to manage during the cost-of-living crisis. With a significant increase in people struggling to make ends meet, these schemes provide an essential final line of defence against the cost-of-living crisis.
But local welfare is far from a perfect system.
Where you live determines how much help you can get from your council. For example, not every council delivers a Local Welfare Assistance Scheme. 35 don’t, leaving more than 14 million people in England without access to this kind of emergency support.
Even for schemes that local authorities have to deliver, what’s on offer varies. Local Council Tax Support (LCTS) schemes help people pay their council tax bills. In some places, this means that low-income households don’t have to pay any council tax. In other areas, low-income working-age residents still have to pay up to 50% of their bill. This leaves people without the help they need.
Better funding could solve some of these issues.
Too often funding is stretched too thinly to meet demand. When local authorities started running Local Council Tax Support schemes in 2013, the government cut funding by 10%, with councils expected to decide how to achieve the cut. Despite the ongoing housing crisis, central government cut funding for Discretionary Housing Payments by 29% last year. And whilst the Household Support Fund has been a welcome injection of cash for local welfare, the scheme hasn’t been without its issues. Until recently, it ran in 6 monthly cycles. This has caused problems both for councils and for recipients who can’t rely on more long-term funds. Increased and more reliable local welfare funding would help councils improve the support on offer.
But local welfare can’t compensate for gaps in the wider system.
Local welfare tends to pick up the slack where other benefits aren’t enough. After the government introduced the Benefit Cap, they increased money for Discretionary Housing Payments. The same week they removed the uplift to Universal Credit, they announced the Household Support Fund. If people don’t get enough benefits, they go to their council for extra support.
But most local welfare is designed to be a short-term fix. Discretionary Housing Payments are usually paid for a set amount of time, meaning they only provide temporary support. Local Welfare Assistance Schemes mainly help with one-off expenses. These schemes can’t fix people’s long-term financial problems. One-off payments don’t give people long-term support, or keep pace with the soaring cost of living.
Local welfare has a crucial role. But increased demand shows that the wider welfare system isn’t working. And while local welfare needs strengthening, it’s still not a substitute for a properly funded welfare system. The real challenge is reducing the number of people forced to turn to their council for help to begin with.
