Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to evaluate the effectiveness of the Household Support Fund between 6 October 2021 to 30 September 2022.

For the purposes of the Household Support Fund, the Department for Work and Pensions requires that Local Authorities provide management information (MI) returns to the department to outline their spend.

For the first two iterations of the Household Support Fund between 6 October 2021 and 30 September 2022, these MI returns record the Local Authority’s grant allocation, spend and volume of awards made in relation to food, energy and water bills, essentials linked to energy and water bills, wider essentials, and housing costs.

Almost 9 million awards were made for the period 06 October 2021 and 31 March 2022 and the MI for this scheme can be found here.

For the second iteration of the Household Support Fund, 1 April 2022 to 30 September 2022, the Management Information, including Local Authority spend levels, will be published in due course.