FMQs: Nicola Sturgeon criticised over real terms cut to welfare fund

A fund set up to help the most vulnerable Scots has seen a real terms cut of £3.5 million it was claimed today.
Richard Leonard urged Nicola Sturgeon to increase the Scottish Welfare Fund.Richard Leonard urged Nicola Sturgeon to increase the Scottish Welfare Fund.
Richard Leonard urged Nicola Sturgeon to increase the Scottish Welfare Fund.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard revealed at First Minister's Questions that the Scottish Welfare Fund has been static at £33m since it was established six years ago.

He said the result meant a "real terms cut of £3.5m", taking inflation into account, and predicted a cut of £7m by 2025 if funding levels remain the same.

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However Nicola Sturgeon said there had been 600,000 crisis grants and 240 community care grants awarded from the Fund since 2013 and urged Mr Leonard to support her calls to have all welfare powers in Holyrood,

Campaigners have called for more money to help improve support for those facing food insecurity though the Scottish Welfare Fund crisis grants. A new report, referenced by Mr Leonard, has said the system for administering emergency payments used by people who have run out of money for food and other essentials could be improved but that it also needed more cash.

The Fund is administered by councils using funding from the Scottish Government and is comprised of a programme budget of £33m and administration budget of £5m. The report by Menu for Change, a partnership that includes Oxfam and the Child Poverty Action Group, further found that some councils do not advertise the Scottish Welfare Fund as much as they would wish because if it operated at full demand, they would not be able to cope.

Quoting from the report, Mr Leonard said there was a “fundamental under-resourcing” of the Fund and concluded that "the overall Scottish Welfare Fund budget has remained unchanged since 2013 when it was introduced".

He added: "Don't just listen to me - Oxfam, the Poverty Alliance, the Child Poverty Action Group all recommend today increasing the fund….it is so fundamentally under-resourced that local authorities do not advertise the Fund for fear of being unable to cope with demand.

"This is the fund which hands out crisis grants to families in emergency situations. So First Minister, will you listen to this report and provide additional lifeline support and will you, at the very least, finally increase real terms investment in the Scottish Welfare Fund?

Ms Sturgeon reeled off the numbers of grants given out by the SWF and added: "We will do what we can to provide support for individuals and families in need through the welfare fund and the money we spent mitigating Tory welfare cuts. Much of the driver of increased poverty in our country right now comes from those welfare cuts and it becomes more urgent with every day that passes that we join together to get those powers out of the hands of the Tories and into the hands of this parliament."

Mr Leonard responded by pointing to a report by the Scottish Fiscal Commission which had revealed the Scottish Government "has no plans to change the level of funding over the next six years, that would mean a real terms cut of over £7m.

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"This is a fund that helps some of the most vulnerable people in Scotland, what is the First Minister's justification for year on year cuts to the welfare fund?"

Ms Sturgeon hit back by saying that the issue of the SWF had not been raised with the Finance Secretary Derek Mackay during last year's budget negotiations, and invited him to offer "proposals as to where we take that money from the allocated Scottish budget."

She added: "I'm prepared to hear that and have that discussion but we never hear that from Richard Leonard. We have protected the welfare fund in the face of cuts to our budget... the sooner this parliament is able to attack poverty at source and take the reasons that are causing the increase in poverty out of the hands of Westminster and into the hands of this parliament the better. And the sooner Richard Leonard supports that the better for families all over our country.

"He will have little or zero credibility on these issues as long as he's prepared to defend the powers that determine these things, not lying in the hands of this government, but lying in the hands of the Tory government in Westminster."

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