Food bank Britain

One in six councils say they will not be able to afford to run crisis safety net schemes if the government goes ahead with plans to scratch its £175m-a-year local welfare grant – a move condemned by Unite.

“Tens of thousands of vulnerable people are already struggling in desperate poverty thanks to vicious, ideological benefit cuts and an obscene policy of sanctions. Now the Tories want to take away what little support local authorities can provide to keep a roof over the heads of children and food on the table,” said Steve Turner, Unite assistant general secretary.

The coalition’s welfare reforms were only introduced two years ago. Campaigners say scrapping the grant will see vulnerable families forced to turn to food banks, high street loan sharks or worse as a result.

The Local Government Association (LGA) surveyed 88 of England’s 150 local authorities, where over half said their local schemes would be cancelled or scaled back significantly.

The welfare schemes provide emergency help for England’s most vulnerable including victims of domestic violence, care-leavers, homeless people and low-income families.

Forced to the breadline

The department for work and pensions (DWP) provides the grant funding but says the government believes that local authorities are sufficiently funded to meet these costs from existing budgets. The funding is set to be removed from April 2015.

“If the government pulls the plug on funding from April, many local authorities will be unable to afford to make up the difference at a time when we are tackling the biggest cuts to council funding in living memory,” said Cllr Claire Kober, chair of the resources board of the LGA.

Steve Turner agrees. He added, “Benefit cuts and obscene sanctions on the vulnerable, unemployed and low paid will only force people into deeper poverty and debt. Decent, well-paid jobs simply don’t exist and those available on zero hours and low pay don’t pay the bills.”

The LGA report says welfare cuts have already left councils with a ÂŁ1bn-a-year bill to cover the cost of supporting struggling families and by 2016 cuts to social security will leave families ÂŁ1,615 a year worse off.

House of Commons library figures showed that average hourly wages have fallen by 5.5 per cent since the Tories came in to power in 2010 and the impact of this on low paid working families is devastating.

“People can’t downsize their homes to avoid the vicious bedroom tax or help them cope as there are no social homes and ‘affordable homes’ are affordable to very few, without huge tax payer subsidies to already rich landlords, sitting on homes as investments or a future pension,” said Steve.

Targeting the vulnerable

“This government is not simply out of touch, it’s deliberately targeting the vulnerable in its drive to force austerity and the blame for the deficit onto anyone but those actually responsible for it.

“What we need is a government committed to investment in decent, secure, well paid jobs, a growing economy for all and a massive expansion of social housing, all things this government have and will continue to fail on,” said Steve Turner.