West Lothian residents will receive extra cash to help…

West Lothian residents will receive extra cash to help pay their winter bills

West Lothian Council has put up extra funding targeted at helping people meeting steeply rising fuel costs and a spiralling cost of living crisis this winter.

The money is in addition to nationally funded schemes already in place including the £400 reduction in bills agreed earlier this year.

SNP group leader Councillor Janet Campbell said the prospect of the winter months and coming cost of living crisis was "terrifying" and asked what the council was doing to help with fuel poverty.

Nahid Hanif , the Anti-Poverty service manager with the council, told a meeting of the Corporate Policy and Resource Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel (PDSP) that a range of extra help payments had been brought in.

West Lothian Council has approved support schemes which include: £135,000 allocated to a “feeling the pinch” fund delivering specific one-off funding for households who need assistance but do not qualify for other types of support available.

Another £392,000 has been allocated to provide an £80 “winter support payment” to customers in receipt of Council Tax Reduction most likely to experience hardship in the winter months including: lone parents, disabled pensioners, those in receipt of Universal Credit with a limited capability for work and those with a carers allowance.

A fund of £42,000 is available to provide additional support for energy bills for people with disabilities, while one of £637,000 will provide an £80 payment to households in receipt of a School Clothing Grant in January 2023 to assist with the cost of winter clothes.

Councillor Campbell suggested that £80 to help with fuel costs would not stretch to cover the three of four months of winter.

Ms Hanif said officers were working continually to asses the challenges that lie ahead and added the council had also put money in a fuel grants fund which could offer an additional grant of £100 to help with fuel costs to those referred for help.

The Anti-Poverty service works with clients looking at income and expenditure and helping ensure they are claiming all they are entitled to. She advised people who have concerns to speak to the Anti-Poverty service who can advise on benefits and hello people maximising incomes.

Ms Hanif added: “We are taking a paper to the Community Planning Partnership to ask partners how we can all work together to support those on low income through this cost of living crisis.”

Pensioner households will receive an extra £300 in 2022/23 to help them cover the rising cost of energy this winter. This additional one-off payment will go to the over eight million pensioner households across the UK who receive the Winter Fuel Payment and will be paid on top of any other one-off support a pensioner household is entitled to.

All pensioner households will get the one-off Pensioner Cost of Living Payment as a top-up to their annual Winter Fuel Payment in November/December 2022.

The Winter Fuel Payment is payable automatically to people who get the State Pension or another social security benefit (not Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction, Child Benefit or Universal Credit) This payment is not taxable and does not affect eligibility for other benefits.