Fears cash ‘lottery’ means vulnerable people in Dudley will miss out

At the meeting on September 22, Dudley Council’s social care and wellbeing scrutiny committee was told £750,000 from the Household Support Fund (HSF) was dished out in under an hour following a huge volume of applications via the council’s website.

Online applications, which opened on the council’s website at noon on September 17, closed in less than 60 minutes after the fund was used up.

Council officers were quizzed on why the cash, which was distributed in £250 one-off payments, was allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

Cllr Jeff Hill said: “Is there a reason why it has to be done so quickly, why can’t it be a few days to apply then you randomly select people?”

Council officers told Cllr Hill they knew the scheme would be oversubscribed and there was not enough resource at the authority to assess applications.

They added, if the scheme was open for a few days 75 per cent of applications would be rejected and they did not want to build up false hope.

Cllr Hill added: “I understand the limitations, would it be fairer to have applications open for a few days and make it very clear it is not guaranteed and do the lottery after a few days.”

Residents of Dudley borough can apply for a payment if they have less than £3,000 in household savings and have a household income of less than £40,000, or £30,000 for a single occupancy household.

The criteria was criticised by Kate O’Dell from Stourbridge Food Bank who, speaking during the public forum, said: “We have talked a lot about vulnerable people and poverty but one of the criteria is that you earn £30,000 a year.

“A young man at the food bank on Universal Credit gets less than £400 a month and was not successful at trying to claim the benefit online.

“I do question the criteria, it would make sense if this was directly allocated to people who are on basic Universal Credit.

“They are the ones who are vulnerable and living in poverty, not people who are earning 30 or 40 thousand pounds a year.”

Cllr Kathy Bayton was worried that people without access to online facilities may miss out.

She said: “Around 21 per cent of the borough is digitally excluded, that can impact on who makes applications and how they can make applications.

“The fact it closes after less than an hour suggests demand is greater than 16 percent.”

The online fund makes up 16 per cent of the £4.2m HSF funding allocated to Dudley Council from the Department for Work and Pensions for the current financial year.

Speaking when the date for online applications was announced in early September, Cllr Andrea Goddard, Dudley cabinet member for adult social care and public health, said: “It’s important to note that our online application scheme represents just a small portion of how the Household Support Fund is used.

“The vast majority of this funding is directed through our frontline services to ensure it reaches those who need it most.

“This initiative is just one part of the broader work we’re doing to support residents and ease the financial pressures many are currently facing.”