How to get emergency help with money and food

If you have made a new Universal Credit claim and are waiting for the first payment, ask for an advance. It is paid quickly, often within days, and can usually be requested through your online journal or by phone. It is not a grant: it is recovered from your later payments over a set period, which reduces them. That trade-off is worth making when the alternative is rent arrears or no food, and not worth making casually.

If your Universal Credit has been reduced or stopped by a sanction and you cannot meet basic needs, apply for a hardship payment. It is not automatic — you have to ask, and you generally have to show you have tried to find money elsewhere and that you have complied with your commitments since. Most hardship payments are recoverable, so they too reduce later payments.

If a change of circumstances or a benefit problem has left you short, ask about a short-term advance rather than waiting for the system to catch up. The DWP can pay an advance of benefit where entitlement exists but payment is delayed.

If you receive a legacy income-related benefit rather than Universal Credit, a Budgeting Loan may be available for essential costs such as furniture, clothing, rent in advance or travel. It is interest-free and repaid from benefit. Universal Credit claimants get the equivalent through a Budgeting Advance instead.

Fuel Direct, sometimes called third party deductions, lets gas, electricity, water and rent arrears be paid directly from benefit at a fixed rate. It is not extra money, but it stops disconnection and enforcement while you get straight, and it removes the arrears from the list of things that can escalate.

Before any of this, check you are receiving everything you are entitled to. Very large sums go unclaimed every year in Pension Credit, Carer's Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Council Tax Reduction and the disability benefits. An independent benefits calculator or a Citizens Advice adviser will identify unclaimed entitlement in half an hour, and unclaimed entitlement is worth more than any crisis grant because it is ongoing and it is a right rather than a discretion.

Ask about backdating. Several benefits can be backdated where there was good reason for the delay, and a backdated award arriving as a lump sum can resolve the crisis that prompted the enquiry in the first place.

England has no national crisis grant scheme. The Social Fund's community care grants and crisis loans were abolished in 2013, and the money was devolved to upper-tier councils to run local welfare assistance as they saw fit. Some councils built substantial schemes. Others quietly stopped spending on it altogether.

The current main route is the Household Support Fund, central government money allocated to councils in England to help households with essentials — food, energy, water, and sometimes wider essentials such as beds, cookers and school uniform. GOV.UK maintains a page that directs you to your own council's scheme, which is the correct starting point because the eligibility rules, the application form and the type of help are all set locally.

What varies is almost everything. Some councils issue supermarket vouchers, some make bank transfers, some pay suppliers directly, some provide white goods rather than cash. Some require you to be on a means-tested benefit; others use a broader hardship test. Some accept self-referrals; others only accept applications through a referral partner such as Citizens Advice or a food bank. Some run continuously; others open and close as funding allows.

The Household Support Fund has been extended repeatedly rather than made permanent, so its existence in any given period is a policy decision rather than a settled entitlement. If your council's page says the scheme is closed, ask whether there is a separate local welfare assistance scheme, a discretionary housing payment budget, or a council tax hardship fund — these are different pots with different rules and councils frequently do not signpost between them.

Two specific council powers are worth naming because they are rarely mentioned. Discretionary Housing Payments can top up housing benefit or the Universal Credit housing element where there is a shortfall between the rent and the help you receive. And councils have a general discretionary power to reduce a council tax bill in cases of hardship, entirely separately from the Council Tax Reduction scheme. Both are applied for, both are discretionary, and both are heavily under-used.

Because English schemes are discretionary, a refusal usually attracts no statutory right of appeal. You can ask for the decision to be looked at again, and you can complain through the council's complaints process and then to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman if the process was unfair — but there is no tribunal and no independent reviewer of the merits. This is the sharpest difference between England and the rest of the UK on crisis support.

Scotland runs the Scottish Welfare Fund, a statutory scheme delivered by councils but governed by national guidance. It has two parts. Crisis Grants help with an emergency or disaster — money for food, heating or essential travel when something has gone wrong. Community Care Grants help someone leave care, stay out of care, or set up a home after a crisis such as fleeing domestic abuse, and typically cover furniture, white goods and flooring. Both are grants, not loans.

The Scottish scheme's distinguishing feature is the review structure. If a council refuses, you can ask the council for a first-tier review, and if that fails you can ask the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman for an independent review, which looks at the decision afresh against the national guidance and can substitute its own. That is a genuine right and it is used successfully. Scotland also has a wider devolved benefits system delivered by Social Security Scotland, including winter heating assistance, so Scottish claimants should check that alongside the Fund.

Wales runs the Discretionary Assistance Fund, which is national rather than council-run — the same rules and the same application route apply everywhere in Wales. It has two elements. Emergency Assistance Payments help with essential costs after an emergency or unforeseen event. Individual Assistance Payments help people to live independently in the community, covering household items. Applications can be made online or by phone, decisions on emergency payments are typically fast, and there is a review route if you are refused.

Northern Ireland runs Discretionary Support, administered by the Department for Communities. It provides grants and interest-free loans to people in an extreme, exceptional or crisis situation who are on a low income, and it covers short-term living expenses as well as items such as beds, cookers and washing machines. Northern Ireland also retains Social Fund products that were abolished or replaced in Great Britain, so the product set is genuinely different.

Northern Ireland's review route is also distinctive: a refusal can be reviewed, and there is an independent Discretionary Support Commissioner who considers further reviews. As in Scotland, that makes challenging a refusal a reasonable default rather than a long shot.

In all three nations, apply directly rather than through a food bank if you can. The national schemes pay money or provide goods; a food bank provides a parcel. The parcel matters, but it does not pay the electricity meter or replace a broken cooker, and applying to both is normal.

Most food banks in the UK operate on a referral model. You obtain a voucher or referral from an agency that has assessed your situation — commonly Citizens Advice, a council team, a housing association, a school, a health visitor, a GP surgery, a social worker, a mental health team or a charity — and take it to the food bank, which exchanges it for a parcel of several days' food.

The referral requirement exists partly to ration limited stock, but its real function is to connect you with an adviser who can address the cause. A good referral conversation identifies unclaimed benefits, an incorrect sanction, a missing Council Tax Reduction, or eligibility for the local welfare scheme. Treat the referral as an advice appointment, not as an administrative hurdle.

The Trussell network is the largest food bank organisation and its site will find your nearest food bank and explain the local referral arrangements. There are also many independent food banks, some of which accept self-referral, and the two networks do not always know about each other — so check both.

Social supermarkets and community pantries are a different model: you pay a small weekly membership and choose a quantity of groceries worth considerably more. They usually have no referral requirement and no crisis test, which makes them useful for a sustained low income rather than a single emergency. Councils and community organisations often run or fund them.

Tell the referrer about specifics. Food parcels can accommodate no cooking facilities, no fridge, medical diets, allergies, baby formula, pet food and religious requirements — but only if someone knows. A parcel of dried pasta is useless to a household with a prepayment meter that has run out.

Check the food-related entitlements separately. Healthy Start provides a prepaid card for milk, fruit, vegetables and vitamins for pregnant women and young children on qualifying benefits. Free school meals are means-tested in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with different thresholds, and Scotland and Wales have extended universal provision to more primary year groups. Holiday activity and food programmes run in school holidays in most areas. All of these are applied for and all are under-claimed.

There is a substantial charitable grant sector in the UK making one-off payments to individuals, and it is materially under-used because people do not know it exists. Grants are made by occupational benevolent funds, armed forces charities, condition-specific medical charities, religious trusts, local almshouse and parish charities, and large national funds.

Turn2us runs a searchable database of grant-giving charities and a benefits calculator. Searching by your circumstances — former occupation, health condition, location, service history — commonly surfaces funds nobody outside the sector has heard of. Occupational funds in particular are generous and lightly subscribed: many trades, professions and industries have a benevolent fund that will help a former worker or their dependants with a boiler, a washing machine, a funeral or rent arrears.

Most grants require an application supported by a caseworker rather than a bare self-application, which is another reason to go through Citizens Advice or a similar agency. An adviser will know which funds respond and how to frame the application.

Energy suppliers run their own hardship funds and can write off or reduce arrears in some circumstances. Ask your supplier directly what trust fund or hardship scheme it operates, and ask to be added to the Priority Services Register, which is free and gives extra protection to people who are ill, disabled, of pensionable age or in a vulnerable situation.

If your problem is debt rather than income, a debt adviser can access Breathing Space in England and Wales, which stops most enforcement and freezes interest for a period, and the Debt Arrangement Scheme in Scotland, which does something similar over a longer term. Neither is applied for directly by the individual, so the call to the adviser is the route.

For housing costs specifically, Support for Mortgage Interest is a loan that covers interest on a mortgage for people on qualifying benefits, secured against the property. It is a loan rather than a benefit, but it prevents repossession and is frequently overlooked by homeowners who assume all help is for renters.

First, find out why. Ask for the reason in writing. Many refusals are for reasons that can be fixed — the wrong evidence supplied, the wrong scheme applied to, a rule about how recently you last applied, or a decision-maker who did not know a relevant fact.

In Scotland, ask the council for a first-tier review, and if that fails ask the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman for an independent review of a Scottish Welfare Fund decision. The review is free, considers the case against the national guidance, and can replace the council's decision. In Wales, use the Discretionary Assistance Fund's own review process. In Northern Ireland, request a review of a Discretionary Support decision and, if necessary, escalate to the independent Commissioner.

In England, a discretionary refusal usually has no appeal on the merits. Ask the council to reconsider, put any new evidence in writing, and if the process itself was unfair — no reasons given, criteria not applied consistently, a decision made without looking at your evidence — use the council's complaints procedure and then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Then apply elsewhere. This is the practical answer more often than an appeal. Discretionary Housing Payments, council tax hardship relief, school hardship funds, charitable grants, the supplier's own trust fund, and a different local scheme are all separate decisions by separate people, and being refused by one says nothing about the others.

Where the underlying problem is a benefit decision rather than a crisis payment, that is a different and much stronger route: benefit decisions carry a statutory right to mandatory reconsideration and then appeal to an independent tribunal, and success rates at tribunal are high. If a sanction, a work capability decision or a disability benefit refusal caused the crisis, challenge the decision itself rather than only chasing emergency money.

Finally, get an adviser involved even if you have already applied and failed. Advisers hold referral relationships that individuals do not, know which local pots are currently open, and can make applications that go to the front of the queue. Advicelocal will find a local service, and Citizens Advice, StepChange and the devolved advice networks all give free help.