The Leader of Rotherham Council is calling for an urgent change of course after it emerged that the Conservative government is not extending £5m of funding to support vulnerable residents in the borough.

Last month in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Cllr Chris Read called for a three year extension of the Household Support Fund. But in the Autumn Statement the government instead confirmed that the scheme is set to close altogether at the end of March.

The Household Support Fund is worth £4.9 million to the Rotherham borough this year, and has funded vouchers for 12,000 children entitled to free school meals through the summer holidays, help with Council Tax for low income households, and energy crisis grants that have been paid to more than 2,000 residents.

The free school meal vouchers, worth £15 a week to each child, are funded in Rotherham up to and including the Easter 2024 school holidays, but without further funding will end after this.

A group of charities including Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, Joseph Rowntree Foundation have already called on the government to reverse its position, saying; “The Fund provides a lifeline for people facing hardship, hunger, and unexpected costs. It enables councils to provide vital crisis support suited to the needs of their communities,” and warning that its end would leave “a major hole in support which neither local government, nor the voluntary sector, will be able to fill.”

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This week Rotherham Council’s Labour administration will set out its intention to use the remaining £500,000 balance to provide energy crisis payments to up to 2,200 more households who are unable to pay their energy bills.

Labour Leader of Rotherham Council, Cllr Chris Read said;

“We called on the Chancellor last month to give us a fair deal – to put council services on a fair footing, bridge the gap in funding for survivors of sexual violence, back flood defence plans, and critically to extend the Household Support Fund. And he has done none of those things. Instead the Conservatives are cutting £5 million from some of the people who need it most in our borough – including £195 of food per year from the mouths of children in the lowest income families. That’s a scandal that for thousands and thousands of Rotherham families will mean the cost of living crisis just gets harder.

“There are already a number of councils across the country who have had to scale back their support because there are just so many people in dire need at the moment. But as demand for foodbanks in our borough has trebled, we’ve been determined to get help to those who need it directly. There is still time for the Tories to change course but we need them to do that urgently and I hope that people will raise their concerns with our MPs now before it is too late.”

Our prospective parliamentary candidate for Rother Valley, Jake Richards, has launched a petition calling on the government to save the Household Support Fund. You can sign it here.