Helping Kent residents through the crisis

I have recently - and rather belatedly - come across a Facebook post by Citizens Advice in North and West Kent  concerning my visit to the  Kent Money Advice Hub kiosk in Gravesham Borough Council’s offices on 3 March. CAB, along with colleagues from Kent County Council and Gravesham BC made me very welcome and it was a valuable and informative visit. It’s worth drawing attention to the Money Advice Hub as an exemplar of the work that KCC and its partners are undertaking to help Kent residents at a time of severe financial pressure.

The Money Advice Hub is part of our Financial Hardship Programme, which includes and has built on the Helping Hands Scheme, launched in February 2021 with £10 million from the Covid Emergency Grant. Other elements of the scheme include the strengthening of Referrals and Data Sharing between councils. Much of the focus is on ensuring that services and support are available to the residents already entitled to them, and that we help residents build their financial resilience. 

Helping Hands and the Financial Hardship Programme go alongside our delivery of the central government funded Household Support Fund (launched in September 2021). In the first two rounds of funding, over 450,000 awards were made to Kent residents. This has covered areas such as food vouchers for Free School Meal eligible families, energy vouchers, support with water bills, funding passed to District and Borough Councils and more. The third round of the Fund has just been delivered, while a £22 million fourth round (announced recently) runs for a full year to March 2024. 

All told, this is a strong programme of support to Kent residents through the cost of living crisis, and it is set out in a very helpful and comprehensive report in the papers for the 30 March KCC Cabinet meeting. You can find the paper here, and the webcast of the discussion of the item here.