Issue details

The Executive Member for Finance and Governance submitted a report for Executive consideration. The report sought approval of the Household Support Fund Scheme (HSF) for the first half of 2024/25 and sought delegated authority for the Director of Finance and the Executive Member for Finance to make minor revisions/modifications to the plan.

On 6 March 2024, the Chancellor announced in the Spring Budget a number of measures to provide further help through the extension of the Household Support Fund (HSF) to support low-income households to cover the period 1 April 2024 to 30 September 2024.

Each Local Authority was required to prepare a local scheme to determine how the funding provided would be distributed. The amount allocated to Middlesbrough was £1,653,615.

Government guidance required Local Authorities to clearly advertise the scheme to residents, including publication on the Council’s website.

The value of individual awards was to be determined by Local Authorities in accordance with the parameters set out in the guidance.

The proposed scheme was based on the Council’s previous successful HSF schemes and had been endorsed by the Council’s Financial Inclusion Group and the relevant internal departments including Children’s Services and Adult Social Care.

The scheme was designed to support vulnerable residents and low-income households that included children, pensioners, people with disabilities and other households who might be experiencing financial difficulties brought about by the economic challenges.

The proposed scheme was set out in Table 1 of the report. Estimated expenditure equated to £1.521m (excluding administration costs).

In line with the guidance, the Council was able to recover administrations costs to deliver the scheme and these had been calculated at £0.132m.  This equated to 8% of the scheme funding. The administrative costs were in line with those of surrounding Local Authorities and also aligned to costs incurred from the administration of earlier HSF delivery plans.

Following implementation of the delivery plan, any remaining funds would be allocated to Council Tax accounts with a then current award of Council Tax Reduction (CTR) and where an outstanding balance remained following the issue of a summons in 2024/25 financial year. The Council also reserved the right to widen the group to those accounts not in receipt of CTR.

The scheme had been designed to provide support across the defined six-month period for awards.

The scheme would be subject to periodic reviews to allow alterations to be made should the scheme requirements need to change to keep pace with events.

Appropriate counter fraud measures would be put in place to minimise risk in accordance with the Council’s policies and procedures.