The Household Support Fund scheme for Reading borough for April 2023 to March 2024 is now closed.
This is because of the funding requirements set by the Department of Work and Pensions for the funds to be utilised between 1 April 2023 and the 31 March 2024.
Over the past year, the Council has utilised all the £2,261,298 that has been allocated to Reading borough to provide cost-of-living support for residents.
The Government has recently announced that further Household Support Funding will be available for Council’s to provide support between 1 April 2024 and 30 September 2024. Details of the new Household Support Fund scheme for 2024 will be available here once they have been agreed.
If you would like further cost-of-living advice or support, please look our the Money Matters advice pages.
There are also several government funded schemes to help with the cost of living – you can find further details on benefits and financial support on the GOV.UK website.
If you have any queries about the Household Support Fund, please first check our Frequently Asked Questions or get in touch by emailing us at household.support@reading.gov.uk.
More information on the support provided by the government to residents struggling with the rising cost of living can be found in the government’s cost of living support page.
The Household Support Fund (HSF) started in October 2021 and has since been extended several times. The HSF provides support to households who would otherwise struggle to buy food, pay essential utility bills, or meet other essential living costs or housing costs. To date there have been three rounds of HSF funding each lasting for six months, and the current round of funding which is for twelve months.
The first round of HSF funding in Reading provided food vouchers to families who needed extra support over school holidays, as well as energy vouchers for targeted residents. Further funding was allocated to support Reading residents with rising food costs, as well as funding for Reading Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations.
The second funding round focused on the rising cost of energy for residents with a targeted Energy Voucher scheme for those in need, especially older people, and families.
For the third round of funding, the council combined the energy and food voucher schemes into one Cost-of-Living voucher for those who required support. This approach provided added flexibility to residents who could choose how to use the funds according to their individual needs. A Cost-of-Living payment was also introduced for Reading households in receipt of Housing Benefit.
Specific details of what support was provided to Reading residents in previous Household Support Fund rounds can be found below:
DECISION BOOK – ISSUE 641 – 19 OCTOBER 2021
DECISION BOOK – ISSUE 646 – 21 DECEMBER 2021
DECISION BOOK – ISSUE 655 – 7 APRIL 2022
DECISION BOOK – ISSUE 658 – 18 MAY 2022DECISION BOOK – ISSUE 662 – 13 OCTOBER 2022
DECISION BOOK – ISSUE 663 – 18 OCTOBER 2022
The Household Support Fund is money provided to local authorities by the government to help residents with essential costs who are struggling to meet the current cost of living.
A Household Support Fund (HSF) grant of £2,261,298 has been confirmed for Reading borough to provide cost of living support between 1 April 2023 and the 31 March 2024.
The grant is provided to help families and vulnerable individuals who struggle to pay for basic living costs, such as:
Funding is aimed at anyone who is vulnerable or cannot pay for essentials. You do not have to be getting benefits to get help from your local council. If you get benefits, they will not be affected if you get a payment from a Household Support Fund scheme.
Whilst there are some broad rules that each local council that receives a Household Support Fund grant from the government must follow, there is also enough flexibility to allow each area to tailor how they use the grant to address the specific cost of living issues in their area.
Also, each local authority does not get the same amount of grant funding. The amount of grant funding is decided by the government and is either higher or lower depending on the government’s assessment of need for each local authority.
Within Berkshire, here is the amount of Household Support Fund grant each local council receives for the year 2023/24:
Reading Borough Council £2,261,297
Slough Borough Council £2,355,383
West Berkshire Borough Council £1,389,699
Wokingham Borough Council £1,051,146
Bracknell Forest Borough Council £1,110,936
Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead £1,175,810
The utilisation of the HSF grant in Reading over the past year has focused on two key elements:
The simple answer to this is that the funding available within the Household Support Fund grant isn’t enough to help everyone in the borough in the way we would want to, and because of this we need to make choices about how the money is used.
Reading Borough Council wants to support families with children who may be struggling with the rising cost of living. Therefore, we are issuing vouchers directly to families who qualify for pupil premium/free school meals and care leavers.
The council also recognises that some residents above pension age who receive Housing Benefit, won’t be getting the £900 cost of living payment from the government that many other residents will be getting. We want to help these residents in some way.
Finally, we know that people may be struggling with the current cost of living for many different reasons. Therefore, we have our application scheme so that any resident can contact the council and ask for some financial support. The amount of funding available for the application scheme is limited, and again we may not be able to help everyone that needs it, but it does give us a lot of flexibility to help residents with a broad range of different personal circumstances.
Details of all the cost of living support that is available within the borough can be on our Money Matters advice pages.
There are also several government funded schemes to help with the cost of living – you can find further details on benefits and financial support on the GOV.UK website.