Local welfare reduced in 2015 by £100m

The status of local welfare has been undecided until now. The central government has now made a final decision on the scheme, and they will be cutting back the programme by about £100m for the upcoming year. While this may seem to be a significant reduction, it is still being funded by more than £74m than was originally planned. This will impact the ability of local council’s to fund their social care and welfare schemes.

This decision can be thought of as a compromise by the government that maybe does not make anyone happy. Many charity organisations and even the church have been putting pressure on the authorities to not make any cutbacks at all, so they are not content with this. On the other hand, government officials wanted to reduce the money paid to councils by even more, so they also will struggle with this decision.

Impact to 2015 welfare schemes

The reduction faced by various councils will vary. Some may face around a 10 per cent reduction, and others will impacted by even less, around 1.5 per cent. It will mostly depend on the demand in their region for services as well as the number of people that live in poverty. So the flexibility being shown by the government is a positive. However the average cut backs to councils will average around 8 per cent, according to the Local Government Association.

While the exact impact over what safety net programmes will be reduced won’t be decided until later in 2015, it is expected that some councils may shut down their local welfare schemes. But this may be rare, and the more likely outcome is a reduction in payments that will be made to those in poverty. Many other councils will either limit the number of people that are assisted or any aid they provide for a crisis will be reduced. So there will be impacts to the most vulnerable in the nation. This is just one more challenge for them when adding in all the other spending cuts being made nationally.

So while the additional £74m being provided to councils is appreciated, it is doubtful it will be enough to help all of the vulnerable across the UK. With the continued roll out of Universal Credit and other schemes such as the Care Act, it is expected that more people will be struggling.

To learn more over what the impact to your town or city is, local councils will have more details on this over the next few weeks. However each and every authority will be impacted to some extent. Anyone that may have used welfare in the past, or thinks they may need it in the future, should start to plan on looking into other programmes for the help they need.