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disregarding local cost of living payments and how to allocate it
morning everyone
there is a small discretionary pot of funds from the Welsh Government’s cost of living support that is going to be distributed outside of the council benefits team.
so two questions :
how to make sure it is disregarded?
how have other local authorities decided who will be in the most need of an extra payment, with limited resources to administer it?
Thanks all
I don’t know what if any difference there is between this funding and the funding received by English LAs. I am reasonably familiar with the schemes adopted by three LAs and they are all very different but have the key element of distributing fixed amounts of funding to eligible persons through local partner agencies. The amounts of the grants, eligibility criteria and method of distribution have varied significantly. The lion’s share of the funding has gone on non-cash schemes e.g. further council tax discounts and so on.
I don’t see that you need to be worried about disregards. If you pay someone a one-off grant, it is capital. As such, it is only going to be a relevant consideration if the claimant is just on the borderlines of the lower or higher capital threshold, which I would suggest is probably enough to result in them being excluded from your scheme in the first place.
Thanks Elliot
Distribution of the funds is going to be limited to people who already have a council support/social worker and is intended for people who are most at risk to their wellbeing from rising energy prices.