Response: Local welfare provision 2015-2016

The government are currently considering whether to make funding available for local welfare provision for 2015/16. For the past two years it has been centrally funded, and administered locally by local authorities.

Shelter have drawn together research and case studies which demonstrate that local welfare provision is used to resettle homeless households, specifically by helping them to secure a tenancy, get essential goods like furniture and cover periods of financial difficulty.  

Without central government funding for 2015/16, local authorities will struggle to continue schemes and the majority of schemes will be scaled back or disappear entirely.

To ensure that support for homeless households continues we recommend that central government make additional funding available for local welfare provision 2015-2016.