Guidance notes
Important: Local Welfare Assistance does not make cash payments. If your application for Community Care Grant element or Crisis Payment element is successful, your award will be paid via a pre-paid card or by BACS transfer. Any award made must only be used to pay for items you have listed on your application.
Crisis payments
If you are struggling with buying essentials you can apply for help with paying your livings expenses, for example: food, gas or electricity. This is a one off payment intended to help you get through your crisis. You can also apply for help with purchasing other essential items such as blankets, heaters and other household appliances.
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
- What will happen if you do not receive help with your electricity or gas expenses.
You can qualify for a crisis 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 £230 per week if you are a single person or £379 if you are part of a couple.
Community Care Grants
The Community Care Grant element of Local Welfare Assistance is intended to help vulnerable people live as independent a life as possible within the community. Community Care Grants are one-off awards to help residents with essential household items, so they can stay in the community or help them settle into a new home.
You may be able to receive a grant if you have been getting one of these benefits (or are likely to get one in the next six weeks if you are due to leave care) and resident within the borough of Ealing at time of application.
- Income Support
- Income-Related Employment and Support Allowance
- Income-Based Jobseekers Allowance
- Pension Credit
- Universal credit - you and your partner (if you have one) must not be working more than nine hours (combined) per week.
Please note that if you have been in receipt of the above benefits for longer than 26 weeks you will be expected to apply to your local Jobcentre Plus for a Budgeting Loan or a Budgeting Advance (if on Universal Credit) in the first instance. We will only consider a payment of Community Care Grant if you are not entitled to a Budgeting Loan or Budgeting Advance or if the amount of Budgeting Loan or Budgeting Advance you can receive is not enough to cover all your essential needs.
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.
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.