§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Malcolm Wicks)I am pleased to announce that the gross discretionary social fund budget for 2003–04 will be £677.5m. This represents an increase of more than £50m over the total gross budget at April 2002. This increase will be funded through higher loan recoveries, plus an increase in net Treasury funding of £20m for this year. The £20m is the first of three annual increases from a £90m boost for the discretionary Social Fund announced in the Autumn 2002 pre-Budget report.
As part of the 2003–04 allocation, we have increased the community care grant budget by £10m. This is a significant increase that will help the most vulnerable. It has been distributed so that every district benefits by an increase in their CCG budget and districts move closer to meeting the same proportion of demand nationally.
The loans budget will be £558m, an increase of £40m over that at April 2002. To maintain fairness within the scheme, the loans budget will continue to be allocated to districts to support consistency of outcome for applicants wherever they live.
£1.5m will be retained centrally as a contingency reserve. For example to provide additional help to districts facing unexpected and unplanned expenditure.
Details of individual district budget allocations have been placed in the Library.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be making a number of minor changes to the discretionary social fund, with effect from 7 April 2003. The changes to the fund are minor clarifications of guidance and directions, and, in the main, are consequential to legislative changes being made in respect of other social security benefits.
Details of the changes have been placed in the Library.