Decision details

In July 2025, the Cabinet Member Safety and Communities made a delegated decision to allocate the Council’s allocation of Household Support Fund:
https://democracy.cheltenham.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=3389

This decision report sets out a three minor revisions to the allocation of the fund.

To approve the revised proposals for the allocation of Household Support Fund 2025/26 as set out in Appendix A;

Background
The Household Support Fund (HSF), first introduced in 2021/22, is funding that is made available via Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to County Councils and Unitary Authorities in England to provide crisis support to vulnerable households in the most need with the cost of essentials. The secondary objective is to provide preventative support to prevent vulnerable households from falling into – or falling further into – crisis.

Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) has been allocated £6,507,891 for the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. The allocation of this funding has been agreed by the GCC’s relevant Cabinet member which includes a sum of £ £1,424,000 allocated to the six district councils to enable them to provide their own localised schemes to support vulnerable people.

A sum of £262,329.50 was allocated to Cheltenham Borough Council to cover the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.

Previous allocations of HSF were agreed by Cabinet in December 2022, June 2023, and July 2024.

The three revisions are set out in appendix A – but summarised below.

In terms of energy support, it was proposed to allocate £30,000 to Citizens Advice so that they could offer financial support to those in need to include support for energy costs and water bills as well as insulation and energy efficient one-off costs.

GCC have subsequently agreed to fund Citizens Advice centrally via their own allocation of HSF – so that there is a consistent approach across the county.

In terms of preventative support, it was proposed to allocate a sum of £2,440 to support winter related schemes. The provider for this was yet to be identified. Following discussions with the food pantries and food bank, it has been proposed to allocate an increased sum of £12,400 as follows:

Springbank 2375
Open Door 1150
Fresh Hope 1150
Cheltenham Foodbank 1150
Cornerstone 1800
West Cheltenham Pantry 1900
CCP pantry 2375
Lakeside pantry 540
Total 12440


Finally, following the sign-off of the district delivery plans, GCC subsequently wished to create a travel subsidy scheme for young people, using some of the funding released by the decision to allocate funding to Citizens Advice centrally.

The scheme, which is managed by Young Gloucestershire, aims to provide travel bursaries for young people so that they can use public transport to access youth provision, one to one support opportunities, leisure activities, job seeking activities and social opportunities.

This funding has now been allocated centrally by GCC and has therefore been removed from the Council’s allocation.

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