Haringey allocates £4.2M to help vulnerable households

Haringey Council has allocated £4.2 million to support vulnerable households facing financial hardship. The funding, part of the government's Household Support Fund (HSF), will help residents with essential costs such as energy, food, and water bills.

This year's allocation of £4,241,687.45, which covers the period from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026, is 12% less than the funding available in the previous year. Despite this reduction, the council aims to provide support to those most in need, preventing crises and ensuring residents are treated with dignity.

The decision, approved by Councillor Seema Chandwani, Cabinet Member for Resident Services & Tackling Inequality, will distribute the funding as follows:

• £1.99 million for free school meal vouchers during school holidays.
• £1.23 million for direct cash payments to families in financial stress with children ineligible for free school meals, pensioner households in financial stress, low-income households with children under 5, care leavers and households with no recourse to public funds.
• Direct cash payments of £195 to households in financial stress with a disabled claimant or partner, and households in receipt of Council Tax Support and/or Housing Benefit with a disabled child.
• £544,000 to the Haringey Support Fund, an application-based process for households needing extra support.
• £15,000 to voluntary and community sector organisations for warm spaces.
• £66,000 to the Council Tax Discretionary Hardship Fund, offering one-off payments towards Council Tax bills for those in exceptional financial hardship.
• £400,000 for administering the scheme.

The council will use a data-driven approach to distribute the majority of funds, minimising administration costs and ensuring those most in need are supported without having to make a claim. To identify and reach the most vulnerable households, the council will use its Low-Income Family Tracker (LIFT) data to identify cohorts of low-income residents who were at risk or in crisis, as well as identifying those with no recourse to public funds. A proportion of the funding will be made available to claim through the Haringey Support Fund so that all residents in hardship have the opportunity to claim additional support. All support will be available to households with No Recourse to Public Funds in line with government guidance.

The Public Reports Pack noted that the Council would work closely with voluntary and community sector partners to promote awareness of the application-based scheme and encourage applications from hard-to-reach communities.

Households most in need of extra support in line with eligibility criteria for the Haringey Support Fund scheme can apply to the fund. Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations are encouraged to promote the Haringey Support Fund to residents most in need of extra support. These residents may be from minority and marginalised communities and/or those identified as living in 'hidden households', including: Households living with people with a disability, Households from minority and marginalised communities, Homeless people or people at risk of homelessness, No recourse to public funds with a community care need, in accordance with the guidance, Households with large families to support, Survivors of domestic abuse, Individuals living in households of multiple occupancy, Family carers.

The Cabinet Member also agreed that the policy is subject to the availability of government funding and will terminate on 31 March 2026. In the event that the government increases the funding available and/ or extends the eligible period beyond 31 March 2026, authority is delegated to the Delivery Director Tackling Inequality to extend this policy as appropriate.

The reasons for the decision were that the guidance for the fund allows local authorities to determine eligibility in their area and target support to those most in need but within the scope of conditions set by the DWP, and that the Household Support Fund payments would support households over the grant period and all funding must be spent between 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.

Alternative options considered included higher values of vouchers distributed to residents, but these options were discounted as it would leave insufficient funding for the Haringey Support Fund, which was the application-based route required by the Fund's rules.