The grant funding allocation per annum is currently £106,000.

Identified priority areas

• Strengthening communities
• Isolation and loneliness
• Access to support services
• Fuel poverty and cost of living impact
• Digital access & outreach
• Tackling inequalities

Specific aims

Minimise the likelihood and impact of financial exclusion in Warwick District through the provision of advice, support, and services at the point of need.

Key requirements

• Maximise and protect the income of the vulnerable Warwick District residents, delaying the need for statutory intervention
• Increase benefit uptake that they are entitled to
• Raise awareness of changes in welfare, actively promote the Government’s own schemes to shelter the vulnerable from the impact of reform
• Reduce the size of people’s debt, and those experiencing financial difficulties
• Engage with the hard to reach
• Increase people’s confidence in their own money management skills
• Improve accessibility of financial education to children and young people

Applications are invited that will use a place-based approach to improve the independence and resilience of the district’s most vulnerable residents through the provision of information and advice, support, and coaching/training to resolve financial and related legal problems.

The application will need to demonstrate that your delivery programme will:

• Improve the financial position of the district’s most vulnerable residents
• Work with other service providers to create an integrated approach that addresses the causes as well as the symptoms of service users’ problems
• Help to reduce the Warwick District Council’s housing-related debt
• Improve residents’ skills in using a range of digital technologies to access services online
• Readily accessible to all residents, with local access via community hubs
• Provide a process of assessment, support, and closure
• Work with Warwick District Council officers to streamline the provision of similar services
• Make referrals to, and work in tandem with other providers to offer coordinated support for the service user
• Make use of volunteer resource and promote volunteering

Capacity, experience and knowledge

Applying organisations will have the capacity, experience and knowledge to be able to deliver a range of support to include the following:

• Benefit advice and claims
• Debt management
• Legal disputes with a financial element
• Housing problems
• Energy or other types of switching to reduce household bills
• Fuel poverty and cost of living impact advice, support, and signposting
• Immigration issues
• Personal financial management coaching and training
• Signposting to other services that will assist the service user, including digital skills training

There is an expectation that proposed projects will

• Be actively marketed with practical measures to reach ethnically diverse communities and targeted to isolated individuals who do not usually engage with services, including the use of periodic marketing campaigns
• Include activities that are relevant to the individual needs, where necessary, provided by other organisations
• Make referrals to and work in tandem with other service providers to provide coordinated support for the service user
• Work with local community groups, making use of local knowledge, networks and trust and engaging volunteer resource and promoting volunteering