Household Support Fund Community Grants

Background

We are inviting organisations from the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector, to apply for funding of up to £5,000 per organisation. This funding has been made possible through the Household Support Fund, which has been awarded to us from central government. The purpose of the Fund is to provide support to households struggling with food and energy costs, as a result of the cost-of-living crisis. A total of £25,000 is available for this grant.

Purpose of Grant

Funding must be used to provide practical support for residents with the costs of energy/utilities, food, essential travel, and other essentials of daily living. This could include, but is not limited to:

• Provision of hot meals.
• Showering/clothes washing facilities.
• Provision of clothing.
• Support with energy efficiency in the home.

Unfortunately, the amount of funding for advice and information is restricted within the Household Support Fund, therefore we cannot accept applications to fund these alone. However, we encourage a holistic and person-centred approach, as we recognise that this can deliver better outcomes for people. Therefore, we will accept applications which include an element of advice and information, but at least 75% of the application must be used to provide practical support.

Eligibility for funding

Applications will be considered from eligible organisations who are providing practical help to Torbay residents. The intention of this grant is to fund support activities which are filling an otherwise unmet need within the community and are not currently being funded through a Council grant, SLA or contract. or which are focusing on providing support to those groups disproportionately impacted by the cost-of-living crisis.

This could include, but is not limited to:

• People with a physical disability.
• People with a mental health condition.
• People with neurodiversity.
• People with SEND.
• People with Caring responsibilities.
• Care Experienced Young People.
• Homeless people.
• People with refugee status.

Recipients of support do not need to be in receipt of welfare benefits. Legally constituted Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector organisations are eligible to apply. You must be registered as a charity or registered with Companies House as a Social Enterprise/Community Interest Company.

What can the money be used for?

Funding can be used for revenue expenditure directly related to delivering the proposed support. This can include:

• Food, hygiene items, and other essentials
• Increased costs of utilities incurred in delivering the support
• Transport costs
• Volunteer expenses

We will consider allowing up to 25% of the grant funding to be used for the purchase of items which are essential to delivering the support, such as equipment or white goods. For example:

• An organisation purchases a washer-dryer to enable people living in temporary accommodation to wash and dry their clothes for free.
• An organisation purchases several large slow cookers in order to provide hot meals for people with no cooking facilities.
• An organisation purchases thermal blankets and draught excluders for someone with a poorly insulated home.

This must be clearly detailed within your application and must provide residents with meaningful benefits in terms of the costs of their food and essentials.

What can the money not be used for?

The funding cannot be used for costs not directly related to delivering the proposed support. This might include:

• Core costs of the organisation e.g., rent, management costs, accountancy costs.
• Building repairs or maintenance
• Repayment of debts

Monitoring

We must report back to central government on the impact of the Household Support Fund. Any organisation applying for funding does so on the understanding that they will enter into a Grant Agreement with us and at agreed quarterly intervals, they will provide anonymised information to us regarding:

• The total number of “households” you have supported using the funding,
• A breakdown of the total number of people supported (total of adults 18-64/children/over 65s).

Decision Making

The Applications will initially be assessed against the pass/fail criteria. The questions that form the pass/fail criteria are:

• Question 3, a “yes” response will constitute a pass, whilst a “no” response will constitute a fail
• Question 10, a “yes” response will constitute a fail, whilst a “no” response will constitute a pass; and
• Question 11, a “yes” response will constitute a pass, whilst a “no” response will constitute a fail

All applicants who pass this initial assessment will go through to have the remainder of their application assessed. 

Decisions on applications will be made by a panel, which includes Council officers and a representative from a relevant VCSE organisation which is not applying for this funding.

The assessment will be in line with the scoring methodology provided for in the Application Form at Section 2, Evaluation Criteria.

Applicants should note that only those who score a minimum of 10 out of a possible 20 will be awarded the fund.

If the fund is over-subscribed, funding will be awarded starting with the highest scoring applications and working backwards until all funding has been allocated, this may mean that the lowest scoring application may be awarded a lower amount than applied for. Where scoring is tied, this may mean organisations being awarded a lower amount than they applied for.

We will aim to make decisions and inform applicants of the outcome within 14 days of the closing date.