Household Support Fund
The Household Support Fund 4 (HSF4) is provided by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to local authorities to provide crisis support to households most in need to help with significantly rising living costs.
The HS4 Fund scheme runs from April 2023 to March 2024.
Further help with the cost of living can be found on the GOV.UK website and also Community Action Derby.
How does the scheme work?
Financial support is provided in the following ways for eligible Derby household in need of support:
Free school meals
- Derby city households with children receiving free school meals will be supported during the term breaks. This will continue to be distributed as supermarket food voucher codes, through schools as part of the HSF4 scheme up to the February 2024 half term break.
- Over 14,800 households have benefitted from supermarket food voucher support over school term breaks providing 1,022,500 meals since April 2023.
Food vouchers
The winter online food voucher application form is now closed for applications as all funding has been allocated to eligible households.
The food voucher scheme has supported eligible households in crisis with food vouchers towards the cost of living.
Since April 2023, over 9959 households have been supported, with over £1,015,300 food vouchers awarded in supermarket food vouchers.
Welcome hubs
The fund also provides financial support for up to 46 local community services and organisations across the city to further develop a community led cost of living support network that includes a warm welcome, hot meal, help towards energy costs as well as help accessing other cost of living support.
During winter 2022/23, the hubs received over 40,000 visits from adults and over 5,050 children.
Energy support
The Energy Support Fund is now closed for applications as all funding has been allocated to eligible households.
The fund has provided access to financial support for help with energy costs in the form of energy vouchers to eligible vulnerable households and those in financial crisis.
Since April 2023, over 4,106 energy support fund applications have been processed, issuing awards for over £229,820.