Nottingham City Council has provided an update on household support vouchers for the city's residents amid the worsening cost of living crisis. One councillor, however, has argued the £3.5m grant, while a seemingly large amount of cash, equates to just a "tenner" per person.
The Labour-run authority will accept an additional £3,556,933 grant from the Government. It comes as part of the Household Support Grant which has before been distributed in Nottingham.
Cash in various forms will be given to a number of residents who qualify, including families in receipt of free school meals, residents in receipt of council tax relief and young people living alone. Back in December last year 7,500 people received £100 supermarket vouchers and a further 4,000 people claimed energy vouchers worth £49.
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A second wave of support earlier this year offered one £50 supermarket voucher and two £49 energy vouchers. There were, however, a limited number of supermarket and energy bill e-vouchers and these were issued on a first-come, first-served basis.
The next round of vouchers will be issued between April and September 2022. The amount has been criticised and, according to the city council, equates to just £10 per person for the city's population.
Councillor Sam Webster, the portfolio holder for finance who represents the Castle ward, said: "It is the same amount we received previously. We've had a working group in place and the working group will now continue to allocate funds and their focus on our behalf will be to make sure the money gets to the Nottingham people who are in the greatest financial need.
"The Government stipulates a third of this grant will be spent on supporting households with children, and another third must be spent on pensioner households and the remaining third there is a discretionary element. For the previous grant which was of similar scale we did allocate the money on providing supermarket vouchers to families in receipt of free school meals and residents in receipt of council tax relief, supporting young people living alone and providing energy vouchers. We also allocated money to foodbanks to help with recent demand.
"We will deal with this current tranche of funding in a similar way to the previous round of funding. I did want to say though although £3.5m is very welcome and sounds like a lot of money, if you break it down for our population it is about a tenner per person and when you look at the rising cost of energy unbelievably a tenner can buy you about two days worth of household energy.
"What we would continue to push the Government on is sustainable financial relief for Nottingham people as they struggle with the cost of living crisis. However, this funding is welcome and we will make sure it is allocated as quickly as possible to those people most in need."
People can check whether they are eligible for Council Tax Support here. Apply for the Household Support Grant here
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