The government has launched a consultation on how local welfare provision should be funded in 2015/2016.

Introducing the consultation, the government says that -

‘As part of the Spending Round 2013, the government provided for a number of areas of local authority spending, including local welfare provision, to be funded from within Revenue Support Grant, rather than being the subject of separate grants.

It was intended that, from April 2015, local welfare provision would be funded from general grant to Local Government instead of an identifiable sum being made available specifically for this purpose. Local authorities would continue to decide what local provision to provide and at what cost, as they are best placed to understand the needs of their local communities.

This decision was recently challenged in judicial review proceedings which have now been settled. The government has committed to making a fresh decision as to how local welfare provision should be funded in 2015/2016′

The government also highlights that the DWP is currently reviewing how the current funding has been used in 2013/2014, and its anticipated use in 2014/2015, and invites respondents to the consultation to reference the findings of that review - which will be made public shortly - before submitting a response to the consultation.

The government goes on to say that it is currently considering the following three options -

• option 1 - local welfare provision would be funded from within existing budgets, with no separately identified or ringfenced funding;
• option 2 - the government could publish a figure showing how much of each upper tier local authority’s Settlement Funding Assessment would notionally relate to local welfare provision based on previous trends with no change to the proposed settlement or the distribution of Revenue Support Grant;
• option 3 - the government could topslice Revenue Support Grant to fund a grant for local welfare provision with no change to the total amount set for Revenue Support Grant in the June 2013 Spending Review.

However, the government also provides respondents with a fourth option which is to make representations on a different approach to those set out in options 1 to 3 -

‘The government previously concluded that the wider package of funding in 2015/2016 for Local Government, agreed at the Spending Review, was sufficient for local authorities to continue their local welfare provision if they judged it a priority in their areas.

The government also previously concluded that local authorities, with their existing social care strategies and duties, are better placed to determine the support needs of local vulnerable people than the old central and remote Social Fund system.

However if you have proposals on other options for delivering and funding local welfare provision (which may include proposals to create opportunities for efficiencies by aligning local welfare provision with other public services) then please share them. If your proposals imply additional funding over and above what has already been provided to local authorities then please provide robust evidence to support this. You may wish to build on any evidence already supplied to the DWP’s review of current provision if relevant.’

In addition, the government seeks views on the equality impacts of the four options and on the following timetable for implementation -

‘We will make a decision on funding for 2015/2016 in time for the provisional local government finance settlement in December 2014.

Any changes that are needed to the local government finance settlement as a result will be made as part of the provisional settlement, which will follow shortly after the Autumn Statement on 3 December 2014. Respondents will have a further opportunity, through the consultation on the provisional settlement, to comment on this before it is finalised in early 2015.’

NB - the deadline for responses to the consultation is 21 November 2014.

The government’s consultation on how local welfare provision should be funded in 2015/2016 is available from gov.uk