Evaluation of Local Welfare Assistance schemes
Local Welfare Assistance (LWA) plays an important role in providing financial support to households in emergency need.
It acts as a safety net to prevent households from falling into destitution and to prevent the escalation of crises.
LWA schemes are locally defined and are funded by councils on a discretionary basis. Given the pressure on council finances, the long term viability of local welfare is uncertain without dedicated funding from central government.
Although the role of councils in providing crisis support has expanded in recent years, there has been little accompanying evaluation of the impact of crisis support, or comparison of the design of local provision, to inform the most effective mechanism for supporting residents.
In this context, London Councils commissioned Policy in Practice to work with a group of London Boroughs to design and trial an evaluation framework for Local Welfare Assistance.
The framework was trialed over six months in 2022 with seven London Boroughs. The evaluation included both data analysis and fieldwork across the seven boroughs.
This report provides the findings of the evaluation and includes recommendations arising from the project.
