EXCEPTIONAL HARDSHIP FUND COULD BE RE-INTRODUCED TO HELP MOST VULNERABLE

The leader of the Isle of Wight Council is looking to reinstate an exceptional hardship fund — which has helped more than 1,000 vulnerable Islanders since it was introduced. It would rescind a decision made in January by the full council to scrap the fund and use the money from it towards increasing the amount of council tax support offered to residents with low incomes. The move was initially proposed by Councillor Clare Mosdell, the Conservative group leader, and was supported at a vote by 21 fellow councillors, while 14 opposed it and 1 abstained. While the council tax support will stay at the approved level — offering up to a 75% discount on council tax bills — Councillor Phil Jordan has announced the cabinet executive would look to rescind the ‘unfortunate amendment’ at the next full council meeting later this month. Speaking at a meeting last week, Cllr Jordan said the cabinet is in favour of getting the best support it can offer to the most vulnerable and most in need but the cost of increasing the local council tax support scheme hadn’t been taken into account, To increase the support to 75%, the authority had to find an additional £366,000, and to ‘make it sound plausible and palatable’, Cllr Jordan said the exceptional hardship fund was removed. The discretionary fund further helps those eligible for the council tax support scheme, who are facing additional ‘genuine hardship’, by paying even more of an individual’s council tax. Cllr Jordan announced his intention to submit a motion to rescind the ‘unfortunate decision’ full council made so ‘the essential support for the most needed in our community and Island’ can be reinstated, he said. During the discussion at full council in January, some councillors said the application process to submit a claim to the hardship fund was difficult and degrading and people felt like they lost their dignity applying for it. There was no clarity at the meeting as to how much was in the exceptional hardship fund, or how many successful applications had been made since it was introduced in 2016. When it was first started, the Isle of Wight Council had set aside more than £200,000 for the hardship fund but it was slashed to a quarter of the size in the following year, 2017, to £50,000 and has remained that size ever since. Figures from a Freedom of Information request since the meeting reveal the number of successful applications has continued to rise, year on year, since 2017 and the council has paid out more than £215,000 to 1,146 Islanders. In the last financial year, 2022/23, the authority went over its allocated £50,000 budget – with 282 successful applications amounting to £54,747. Up until the end of 2023, in the 9 months the fund has been open, 271 applicants had come forward with only 150 of those a success and equalling a payout from the council of £44,292.