The Government has announced that a new Household Support Fund grant will be made available to county councils and unitary authorities in England to support those most in need.
On 23 March 2022, in the Spring Statement, the government announced that the Household Support Fund would continue.
Lincolnshire has been allocated £5.5m for this extension to the Household Support Fund. More than half of this money has already been passed to schools and early years providers to support eligible pupils. These families were provided with a one-off payment to help with food bills as and when needed.
The remaining funding will be distributed by councils and through community organisations to individuals with an identified need. The majority – but not all – will go to low-income households of pension age. You do not need to contact your council to apply for this funding. Eligible households will instead be contacted and offered support before the end of September.
Residents facing financial difficulties can also visit https://costoflivingsupport.campaign.gov.uk/ for details of the other support available.
The original Household Support Fund ran from 6 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 and totalled £500m. Lincolnshire received £5,464,685.20.
In May 2022, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that there will be a third round of the Household Support Fund to cover the period from October 2022 to March 2023. Guidance has not yet been released to councils on funding allocations or targeted groups for this next round. Once an update is available, this will be communicated via this web page.
In addition, there is a Holiday Food and Activity programme for children eligible for benefits-related free school meals.
How we have used personal information to identify eligible households to provide targeted support to those most in need via the extension of the Household Support Fund
The Department for Work and Pensions, Lincolnshire County Council and District Councils have worked together according to government guidance, using benefits data and address identifiers about eligible pensioners in Lincolnshire. This has helped us to ensure the grant funding is targeted appropriately and facilitate payments under the voucher scheme.
For the Early Years element of the funding and associated entitlements, information is provided to us via parents’ declarations, for the purpose of checking eligibility. For free school meal eligible children, we have used information from parental free school meal applications.
Information is processed by us to perform our tasks carried out in the public interest and in the exercise of our official authority. We are required to retain your information for as long as is necessary, after which it will be securely destroyed. We have retention schedules in place that set out in detail how long information will be held for.
Your information rights
You have several rights in relation to the information that the council holds about you. For more information about how we handle personal data, your rights, when they might apply and how to make a request to exercise them, please see our customer privacy notice and Privacy Notice Directory.