Household Support Fund

The Department of Work and Pensions has made additional funding available for low-income households in Kingston who meet the criteria and are struggling to afford food, fuel, utility bills and other essentials.

We have been allocated £1,520,777.72 in funding, which covers the period 1st April 2025 to 31st March 2026 inclusive.

Local Authorities have discretion on exactly how this funding is used. In Kingston, we aim to provide support to households in need, including those with children, pensioners, and individuals with disabilities, who would otherwise struggle to afford energy, food, and water bills.

We will use the Fund in the following way to provide support to Kingston residents:

• Means Tested Free School Meal holiday vouchers - £875,620 (including 10k admin) provided directly via schools.
• VCSE grants - £400,000
• Residents' applications - £240,157.72
• Administration - £5,000*

Energy bills may be of particular concern to low-income households during the period of the scheme, and the Council will consider supporting households with the cost of energy. The fund can also be used to support households with essential costs related to those items and with wider essential costs. In exceptional cases of genuine emergency, it can additionally be used to support housing costs where existing housing support schemes do not meet this exceptional need.

Where eligible, support with food, utility bills and other pressures will be provided through a voucher.

To be eligible to access the support, you will need to be a resident of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (or if homeless or with no recourse to public funds, have appropriate links to the borough), and one or more of the following eligibility criteria must apply:

• You have insufficient funds to access nutritional meals
• You have insufficient funds to be able to keep your home warm, electricity or gas on and access to water for cooking
• You have insufficient funds to be able to afford essentials such as food, toiletries (sanitary products, soap, etc), clothing, blankets, boiler service/repair, and access to equipment including fridges and ovens.
• The household has an urgent housing need that can not be funded by an existing scheme, e.g. housing benefits, etc
• The household has a vulnerability or a community care need

Council Officers, voluntary sector partners and other referring professionals will be asked to assess needs against these criteria and confirm eligibility.

Individuals may be receiving other forms of support, including Universal Credit. If families are receiving support through other food or utility schemes, this should be taken into account, and you should avoid duplicating existing support. However, families in receipt of other schemes are not excluded from receiving the grant. For example, a family may:

• have additional wider needs in terms of food and utilities
• require other essential supplies
• include individual family members who are not in receipt of support

Process

To manage the volume of applications and to ensure support is available throughout the funding period, we will use the following process:

• One application per household during HSF 7
• Provide £300 per eligible household
• Applications open on the first working day of each month, with a limit of 80 applications per month, accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.
• The application form will close once 80 applications are received each month and will reopen at 9am on the first working day of the following month until March 2026.

Please note:

• Applying does not guarantee support from the Household Support Fund.
• All information provided in the application will be verified using DWP and Council data.
• Any application deemed to have provided incorrect or misleading information will be declined and treated as a fraudulent claim.

If you believe you may be eligible for the Household Support Fund, you can apply directly using the form below, or a professional can do this on your behalf.

Apply for Household Support Fund

If you have any questions, you can email householdsupportfund@kingston.gov.uk or ring the council on 020 8547 5000 and our Contact Centre will arrange for the team to contact you.