Cost of Living Leeds: Pleas for emergency help from the poorest households doubles in one year

Leeds City Council’s local welfare support scheme dealt with 963 applications in August this year, compared to 434 in August 2021.

There was a 78 per cent jump in requests for help in the space of a single month alone, between July and August this year, a council report on the scheme said. The programme typically offers short-term emergency help by way of supermarket vouchers, fuel vouchers, white goods, furniture and flooring,

Most of the people now asking for help have “never previously applied to the scheme”, the report said. It added: “The most common reason for applying is due to the rising cost of living and applicant’s income no longer meeting their outgoings. Most of these requests are for emergency food or fuel.”

The support scheme is now set to be expanded to help reach more people after a review of the service, conducted by the council itself, found its eligibility rules were “outdated” and “inconsistently applied”. People on low incomes, but who aren’t in receipt of benefits, were not previously entitled to help from the scheme.

Under the proposed changes however, they will be. Speaking at a scrutiny meeting on Monday where the issue was discussed, the council’s deputy head of customer contact, Nick Hart, said: “Where previously only those on benefits were accepted, it will recognise the rise in in-work poverty and current cost-of-living crisis.

“So under the new proposed eligibility criteria you’ll see that low incomes as a broader criteria is included in that. One thing we discovered was that the low-income threshold previously was set at £10,000 (a year).

“So someone earning £10,000 – they’re going to be in significant hardship. But you could earn just over that and we’d be denying help. We don’t want to be in that place now. You could be earning £20,000 and still be struggling in the current climate I would argue.”

Under the proposed changes, the full eligibility criteria will be posted on the scheme’s website so residents know in advance whether or not they’re likely to be accepted. Mr Hart said that people would also be able to apply in person at one of the council’s customer contact centres, where they would be supported to fill out a form “there and then”.

He added that a ‘no refusals’ policy was likely to be adopted, with people who aren’t entitled to help from the council’s scheme likely to be signposted to other places where they might be able to get support.

He told local councillors: “We don’t want to say to someone, ‘No you can’t access this scheme’. And that’s that. We want to be able to support people no matter what.”