Councillors target £3.7m to help people get through cold winter in cost of living crisis

At a cost of nearly £3.7 million, members of the Cabinet Committee unanimously agreed to authorise the support programme for another year.

The programme is largely the same as in 2023 and 2022, and will fund a variety of initiatives to help people get through the cold winter in the midst of the ongoing cost of living crisis.

The money will help with energy advice and crisis fuel support, mould and damp issues in housing, provision of warm community spaces, help with small works and insulation, carpeting, and provision of household items.

There are also a few changes - Fife’s Winter Support programme is now Fife’s Cost of Living Support programme. For more information about the support programme and information about the cost of living crisis, Fife Council has directed residents to our.fife.scot/gethelp

On the surface, funding has also appeared to decrease. Last year, councillors approved a £4.3 million winter assistance package, and then added an additional £1.8 million in October.

The winter programme 2022/23 was supported with £8.6 million drawn from covid grant carry forward, council revenue budget allocation and balances. This year, the council has allocated £3.7 million for the cost of living support programme.

However, a spokesperson for the council clarified that the current funding is actually in line with what the council spent on the programme last year.

“This year's budget reflects more accurately how much money is required to support the ongoing work,” the spokesperson clarified.

In fact, £1.218m worth of this year’s funding comes from an underspend from the 2023/24 programme.

Fife Councillors have set aside a further £50,000 as a reserve to meet any excess demand on services.

“The key factor in this is that we are now moving more from support to prevention. We are looking at projects which can help people before they reach crisis point,” the council spokesperson clarified.

Council Leader David Ross added: “So many people in Fife are still reeling from the early days of the cost of living crisis, and while things may have slightly stabilised, far too many people are still struggling just to cover the essentials for living. We don’t think that’s acceptable.”

He continued: “The decision to continue our Cost of Living programme is absolutely the right one. The many projects we have funded are invaluable to ensuring that the people of Fife can continue to live with dignity through these difficult times. They have been a lifeline for some people.”

Going forward, however, the council will need to grapple with a declining amount of temporary funding for the programme and move towards something more permanent and sustainable.

“A lot of this programme over the last three years has relied on temporary funding,” council officers told the committee on Thursday.

“That temporary funding, by definition, will be declining. There are a lot of questions in our mind at the moment about how we are going to move from crisis support to an ongoing service offer and how we can sustain that financially.”

The council believes that the priorities and proposals for the 2024/25 programme will take Fife to a more focused prevention agenda, while continuing to help those in immediate need, with emergency food, fuel and crisis support.