This decision is delegated to the Head of Financial Services under Part 4.4 of the Council’s Constitution: all executive functions except the ones in Part 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 and any executive functions delegated to the Shareholder and Joint Venture Group are delegated to the officers in the Senior Management Structure (Part 9 Annex 1).

To accept an offer of external funding (up to £641,303) from Oxfordshire County Council to provide cost of living support to vulnerable people.

The funding is to be used in the following manner:

£143,435 for Department for Work and Pensions Household Support Fund 4 funding
£244,230 for Council Tax Support funding
£253,638 for Discretionary Housing Payment funding.

Oxfordshire County Council wishes to provide funding to Oxford City Council to provide support to eligible residents during the cost-of-living crisis. This will increase the availability of support to residents in exceptional circumstances of financial hardship.  The decision to accept the funding allows extra financial support to be provided to eligible vulnerable residents within Oxford.

The option to not accept the offer of funding was rejected as it would not allow the additional financial support to be provided to eligible residents in circumstances of financial hardship.

Decision taken by Nigel Kennedy, Head of Financial Services.