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New Research and Resources from End Furniture Poverty

New Research and Resources from End Furniture Poverty

New Research and Resources from End Furniture Poverty

Monday, December 12, 2022

End Furniture Poverty have published two new reports which investigate the issue of furniture poverty and potential solutions.

1. Research - Resetting Crisis Support 2022

"This is our third report examining Local Welfare Assistance (LWA) funding, and it shows the trends of recent years are continuing.

More LWA schemes in England have closed, more of the additional Government funding, (now the Household Support Fund), was used for targeted direct grants rather than open to applications, and yet more tight spending timescales have meant local authorities have been under huge pressure to distribute funding in their local area before deadlines mean the funding is returned to Westminster.

It is again a more complex funding picture than in the past as core funding for LWA is mixed with the additional emergency Government grants, but the fundamental picture is still the same, core funding for LWA by local authorities continues to drop, and sadly millions more people are looking for crisis support but unable to apply in many local authority areas.

Finding Highlights:

  • 35 Local Authorities did not operate a Local Welfare Assistance (LWA) scheme in 2021/22. This has increased from 32 schemes in 2020/21.
  • Local authorities spent a total of £55.5m on LWA in 2021/22. Excluding 2020/21, this is the highest amount spent on LWA since 2015/16, largely due to additional Government funding provided through the Household Support Fund.
  • Although overall spending was high by recent historical standards, the amount that came from local authorities’ core funding was £30.5m – the lowest core spend on record and a 91% reduction on local authority LWA spend in 2010.
  • 45% (or £25m) of LWA was funded by money from the Household Support Fund as opposed to core funding.
  • Overall per capita LWA spend in England was £0.98 this year, down from £1.30 last year. Two thirds of local authorities have reduced their per capita spending in the last year.
  • Furniture spend was £24m in 2021/22. This was 44% of LWA expenditure this year, an increase of 12% on the proportion spent on furniture in 2020/21. It is encouraging to see that local authorities recognise the vital role of crisis support in providing people with essential furniture and white goods.
  • There were approximately 242,000 awards made this year compared with around 449,000 in 2020/21, a 46% decrease in awards."

Source: EFP. Read the full report or watch the webinar on their website.

2. A Blueprint for Furniture Provision in Social Housing

"We know that many more social landlords are now considering more ways to support tenants, and furnished tenancies can be an ideal solution. But introducing a new scheme with the necessary capital outlay can be challenging so thanks to funding from Fusion 21 Foundation, we have created our Blueprint for Furniture Provision in Social Housing.

We spoke to over 30 social landlords, speaking to those running FT schemes to understand how they operate and the challenges they have overcome, and to those looking at introducing schemes to find out what questions they need answering.

The result is a detailed guide which we believe covers everything a landlord needs to know to prepare a business case for a new furnished tenancy scheme.

We highlight the huge opportunities an FT scheme can offer to a landlord, as well as the benefits to the tenant, as well as exploring the funding and budgeting implications, the operational requirements and much more.

We believe at least 10% of all socially rented properties should be offered as furnished properties and we hope that this document will help to deliver this target."

Source: EFP. Read the full report or watch the webinar on their website.

End Furniture Poverty is the campaigning and social research arm of FRC Group, a group of 100% not-for-profit charities. FRC Group has been providing furniture, both new and preloved, to people living in furniture poverty for over 30 years and reducing, and ultimately eradicating furniture poverty is FRC Group’s core mission. 

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