Social Fund reform essential to tackle poverty, says CPAG

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is supporting calls for reform of the Social Fund, recommended in a Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) report published today.

‘The Social Fund: current role and future direction’ calls for immediate improvements to the scheme, such as same-day decisions on applications for a Crisis Loan; decisions on Community Care Grants and Budgeting Loans to be made within five working days; more flexible repayment rates; a faster appeals process; and more information and advertising of the scheme.

In the longer term, the report calls for radical reform and any new scheme:

• needs to be more grant-based than the present system, because of the evidence that repayment of loans leads to hardship;
• will require substantial extra funding, because the current scheme is not meeting all the possible demands placed upon it;
• should be transparent and open with clearer entitlement criteria and decision-making;
• and should be underpinned by a generally agreed list of 'essential items' that people with a low income have a right to access.

Backing the report’s conclusions, CPAG’s Chief Executive Kate Green said:

“Radical reform of the Social Fund is essential to tackle child poverty and help those in the greatest need. The current system means that many families are either unable to pay for essential items like cookers, cots and funeral costs or leaves them struggling to repay loans from very low weekly incomes.

“We would like to see more money invested in grants that give the most deprived families the basic essentials for a decent home and healthy children, as well as grants to help parents make the transition from welfare to work.

“Decisions also need to be made quicker, particularly when families are facing real emergencies, and more effort needs to be made to promote the existence of the Social Fund itself.”

For further information from CPAG please contact:
Alex Belardinelli
CPAG Press Officer
Tel. 020 7812 5216 or 07816 909302
abelardinelli@cpag.org.uk