Other Financial Help 


Cold Weather Payment 



This payment is made automatically to anyone receiving certain qualifying benefits if the temperature at specified weather stations is recorded as, or forecast to be, an average of zero degrees Celsius or below over seven consecutive days between 1 November and 31 March. 



Currently worth £25 for each period of cold weather, it is different from the Winter Fuel Payments that are paid to pensioners (see page 82). 


To qualify you must be in receipt of: 



• Pension Credit; or



• Income Support or Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and have: a disability or pensioner premium; a child who is disabled; Child Tax Credit that includes a disability or severe disability element; or a child under five living with you; or



• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and have: the support or work-related component of ESA; a severe or enhanced disability premium; a pensioner premium; a child who is disabled; Child Tax Credit that includes a disability or severe disability element; or a child under five living with you; or



• Universal Credit, not be employed or self-employed and one of the following apply: 



◊ you get a limited capability for work element (with or without a work-related activity element); 



◊ you get the disabled child element in your claim; 



◊ you have a child under five living with you.



You will also be eligible if you have a disabled child element in your claim, whether you are employed or not. 



The Social Fund



The Social Fund may be able to help with one-off or occasional expenses. From 1 April 2013, community care grants and crisis loans were abolished in England and Wales and replaced with different welfare assistance schemes and advance payments. In Scotland, the Scottish Welfare Fund was set up to replace the Social Fund community care grants and crisis loans see: www.gov.scot/Topics/People/fairerscotland/scottishwelfarefund. In Wales, there is a Discretionary Assistance Fund. 


Budgeting Loans



Budgeting Loans can help pay for furniture, white goods, clothing and shoes, advance rent, the costs associated with moving house, home maintenance, improvements or security, travelling costs, costs associated with getting a new job, maternity costs, funeral costs, and repaying HP loans or repaying loans taken for the above items.


You may be able to get a Budgeting Loan if, for the past six months, you have been getting Income Support; income-based Jobseeker's Allowance; income-related Employment and Support Allowance; or Pension Credit.


You cannot get a Budgeting Loan if you are involved in industrial action or you owe more than £1,500 in total for Crisis Loans and Budgeting Loans. (The rules are different in Northern Ireland). 


Budgeting Loans will continue to be available until Universal Credit (UC) is fully rolled out. As people migrate across to UC they will have access to Budgeting Advances.


The lowest amount you can borrow for a Budgeting Loan is £100. The maximum amounts are:


• £348 if you’re single;


• £464 if you have a partner; ot


• £812 if you or your partner claim Child Benefit.


The amount depends on whether you can pay the loan back, have savings of more than £1,000 (£2,000 if you or your partner are 63 or over), or are paying back an existing Budgeting Loan or Crisis Loan. The loans are interest free and must normally be paid back through benefits over two years.


Local Welfare Assistance



The government scrapped the Local Welfare Provision Grant, which provided councils with funding to provide crisis loans and community care grants from 2015-16. Funding of £172 million in local welfare assistance schemes was provided on a non-ring-fenced basis to 2015, but the government announced that from April 2015, any support would have to come from within local authorities’ general funds.