Decision details

To distribute funds to local voluntary community sector partners to deliver The Household Support Fund by March 31st 2023 to the sum of £148,000.00.

Funding has come from the DWP to Gloucestershire County Council for their wider Household Support Fund grant programme and each district has been allocated a portion of that to deliver locally responding to need.  Gloucestershire County Council has engaged with Gloucester City Council to support them to deliver the Household Support Fund to ensure support gets to households in the most need; particularly those who may not be eligible for the other support government has recently made available. The funding must be distributed by March 2023 which does not allow sufficient time for procurement so the approach will ensure funds get to communities via partners with whom we already have distribution relationships (mainly via the HAF work) and who collectively cover a broad area of the city and demographic, as well as being well placed to make sure funds go to those who need them the most.

The County Council has been involved in the planning for this process. The rationale for distributing through VCSE organisations is that they have the local knowledge, connections and relationships with residents, schools and other community groups to distribute across the City reducing any barriers to accessing support whether that’s due to digital poverty, pride or language barriers and through making those connections locally a relationship can be established, and connections made for people in their local community.

There is no alternative available at this time due to the expediency required to deliver support to the community. Other options would not meet the time restrictions.

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