Guidance notes
Important: Local Welfare Assistance does not make cash payments. If your application is successful, your award will be paid via BACS transfer. Any award made must only be used to pay for items you have listed on your application.
Local Welfare Assistance payments
If you are struggling with buying essentials you can apply for a Local Welfare Assistance payment to help with paying your living expenses, for example: food, gas or electricity. This is a one off payment intended to help you get through your crisis.
A Local Welfare Assistance payment can also help vulnerable people with large household appliances. These are one-off awards to help residents stay in the community or help them settle into a new home.
Qualifying conditions
You must be a resident within the borough of Ealing at time of application (applicants who have been placed in temporary accommodation by Ealing Council in an accommodation out of borough but remain liable for rent to Ealing Council and cannot receive support under the Local Welfare Provision where they live may also be considered).
In order for us to be able to consider your application you need to tell us in detail about:
- the hardship you are experiencing
- why you are not able to meet the expenses
You can qualify for a Local Welfare Assistance payment if you are in receipt of one of the following benefits or in employment with earnings below the threshold:
- Income Support
- Jobseekers Allowance
- Employment and Support Allowance
- Pension Credit
- Universal Credit
- You are employed or self-employed and your net earned income does not exceed £293 per week if you are a single person or £482 if you are part of a couple.
Please note if you are applying for household items and you have been in receipt of the above benefits for longer than 26 weeks you may be expected to apply to your local Jobcentre Plus for a Budgeting Loan or a Budgeting Advance (if on Universal Credit) in first instance.
You will need
To fast track your application you will be given the opportunity to upload supporting evidence at the end of the form to support your application:
- proof of identity – Passport, driving licence, birth certificate etc
- proof of address – Council tax bill, utility bill, benefit entitlement letter, tenancy agreement etc
- proof of capital – Up to date statement or mini statement for all accounts held
- proof of earnings – Latest payslip or your most recent Universal Credit statement
For community care grant applications we will need to see a tenancy agreement for your home or if you are moving for your new home. In addition for each bank, post office and building society account held one month most recent statement. If you have applied for removal costs we need to see two quotes.
Uploading supporting documents
- accepted file types: Word (doc, docx), acrobat (pdf), excel (xls, xlsx), plain text (txt), powerpoint presentation (ppt, pptx), image (jpg, jpeg), rich text format (rtf)
- zip files cannot be uploaded
- do not upload files larger than 10MB
How we collect and use your information
In order that we can maximise the amount of assistance that may be available to you we may share information with other organisations and charities. Details of how we collect and use your data can be found in the Benefits Service privacy notice.