Trustees approve extra cash for hardship grants

EXTRA SPENDING of up to £57,000 on Shetland Charitable Trust’s financial hardship scheme – set up to replace winter Christmas grants – has been approved.

Earlier this year SCT trustees agreed to close the Christmas grant scheme, paid out to pensioners and the disabled, instead replacing it with a new fund targeted at the most vulnerable island residents including young families struggling with poverty.

Back in February, when the details of the new scheme were still being finalised, the 2014/15 budget was set at £100,000, a drop on the £362,000 spent on the old scheme.

At Thursday’s trust meeting a request from SCT general manager Ann Black to increase the budget to £157,000 was backed by trustees.

Her report said it was anticipated that around 520 people would receive a payment over the coming winter. The first payments are due to be made in October.

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External administration costs to assess individuals’ financial hardship could cost a further £1,000.

At the time of February’s decision to end the Christmas grant scheme, trust chairman Bobby Hunter stressed it had not been done for financial reasons – though he continues to remind trustees that SCT annual spending, now down to just over £10 million a year from a high of more than £13 million, still exceeds its income.

Hunter told BBC Radio Shetland on Thursday that it was “quite clear when we gave the £100,000 that we would put more money in if it was proved that it was necessary”. Thursday’s decision demonstrated that “we are listening to the experts and where money is needed we are putting it in”.

Trustee Betty Fullerton welcomed the decision, adding it was important that “we’re targeting the people who are actually in need, and that was what the trustees wanted – rather than just handing out the money to everybody because of certain criteria which was pretty, pretty loose”.