Fighting to save the safety net

When Anna, abused at the hands of her husband and his family, sought help from a Solace Women’s Aid refuge, she had no money, a young child in tow, and no home to go to. A lease was arranged on an unfurnished flat for Anna and an application was made to the Local Welfare Provision Fund for basic furniture, including a bed and a sofa. The refuge offered support, working closely with the council, to make sure that Anna got help to find a job and advice on how to manage her money. It was because of this that Anna and her child could start to rebuild their lives.

It was the same fund that meant Fabian & Jordan, teenage brothers, didn’t have to go into care when their mother left. The children were re-housed with their father in new, unfurnished accommodation. Through the Local Welfare Provision Fund, the council provided beds, a cooker and a table and chairs to allow the boys to continue to study and live at home.

These are not their real names, but they are real stories of the difference that the Local Welfare Provision Fund has made here in our part of north London.

So, when the Coalition government announced that it intended to abolish the fund from April next year, Islington’s Labour council joined a High Court challenge against the decision. That challenge has now forced a government rethink on this local lifeline. The result is a possible reprieve for the fund, worth £174m a year nationally, which every council in England gets a share of in order to provide vital support for vulnerable residents in serious hardship.

Our council gets £1.2m each year which it spends in full through the innovative Resident Support Scheme we run jointly with local charity the Cripplegate Foundation. The money goes on everyday essentials such as beds, fridges and cookers which those in crisis cannot afford, as well as on longer-term support such as training and advice to help people out of poverty and into work. Some other councils have struggled to disburse their full allocation – they need time and support to do so, drawing on good practice from schemes like ours, rather than to see the funding cut almost as soon as it has been devolved.

Islington Council’s lawyers teamed up with charity Child Poverty Action Group and a disabled gentleman in Cheshire to argue that cutting the fund would seriously harm local authorities’ efforts to support residents in genuine need, including women fleeing domestic violence, homeless people, pregnant mothers, care leavers, pensioners struggling to maintain their independence and people suffering from chronic physical and mental health problems.

In the end, rather than continuing to defend its position at a judicial review hearing next month, the government has signed a ‘consent order’ agreeing to reconsider the funding of local welfare provision. The order means that the government will now revisit its decision to cut the fund in the light of an ongoing review of local welfare provision, proper consultation with stakeholders and due consideration of equalities implications, all of which it had previously failed to do. It has undertaken to notify all local authorities of its new decision in time for the provisional local government finance settlement, expected in December.

We made this stand on behalf of tens of thousands of people in need of support up and down the country because we believe that what remains of society’s safety net is worth fighting for. This fund is a lifeline, not a luxury, keeping families together, sustaining tenancies and helping residents on the breadline to survive.

The government decided to abolish this vital fund without properly considering the consequences. Now, it will be forced to complete a review of the fund, consult properly and consider the equalities implications of its new proposals. I sincerely hope this will mean that the fund does carry on, so we can continue to offer a helping hand to Islington residents when they need it most.

Abolishing the fund would disproportionately hit the most vulnerable in our society who are already reeling from successive social security cuts. This government seems determined to drive them to food banks and loan sharks. We are saying enough is enough.

Help us keep the pressure up on the government, join forces with the Local Government Association, London Councils, London Funders, Child Poverty Action Group, the Children’s Society and others, and click here to get involved in our ongoing campaign to Keep The Safety Net.

Cllr Andy Hull is the Executive Member for Finance at Islington Council