{"id":56624,"date":"2022-06-22T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/?p=56624"},"modified":"2022-06-22T09:06:55","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T08:06:55","slug":"financial-support-for-households-struggling-to-pay-for-energy-food-and-other-essential-items","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/financial-support-for-households-struggling-to-pay-for-energy-food-and-other-essential-items\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial support for households struggling to pay for energy, food and other essential items"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The cost of living is affecting us all. Rising inflation and energy prices are hitting households hard, adding substantial amounts to our annual bills.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BBC report today<\/a> that prices for food, energy and fuel are continuing to rise at their fastest rate for 40 years,\u00a0with Office for National Statistics data<\/a> indicating that UK inflation is now up to 9.1 per cent in the 12 months to May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has said that its \u00a3200 energy rebate will be doubled to \u00a3400, and will no longer have to be repaid. And that a \u00a3650 one-off payment will be available to support the country’s most vulnerable, paid to people in receipt of means-tested benefits. You can read more about that on the government’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we are also keeping advice and guidance up to date on our website to help people in Devon with their rising costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have been allocated around \u00a35 million, by the government, to support low-income families, in a scheme called the Household Support Fund, which runs until September 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s to provide rapid short-term financial support to households who may be struggling to afford to pay for their energy, water, food or other essential items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are conditions on how the Household Support Fund can be allocated, with at least a third of it needing to support households in which there are children or young people; at least a third must also be used to support households that include people of state pensionable age; and the rest can be used for other vulnerable households who are struggling to meet their food, energy, water and other essential bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re also working with Citizen’s Advice Devon with a scheme to support people using pre-payment meters who are struggling to meet their energy needs. And we’re working with our District\/City councils to provide further funding to support eligible households who are vulnerable and struggling financially to buy food, water, energy, essential and exceptional (eg rent arrears) provision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are also encouraging parents and guardians whose financial circumstances may have changed or who are struggling with rising food prices, to check their eligibility and apply for free school meals.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Families eligible for benefit-related free school meals will also receive holiday vouchers to help pay for their food shopping at a range of supermarkets, for six weeks over the summer holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And 40,000 places are available now for young people, aged five to 16, who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals, to take part in our summer holiday activities and food programme<\/a>, for free. We have a wide range of activities, which include healthy, nutritional, hot meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, if you have a household income of less than \u00a330,000 a year, you may be eligible for free energy efficiency improvements to your home worth thousands of pounds, which is better for the environment and will save on energy bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find out more about the support available on our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":53770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[34,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-dcc-homepage"],"acf":[],"featured_image":{"ID":53770,"title":"household bills","alt":"a calculator with a model house by it, indicating household 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