It says parents are being left at risk of debt and struggling to afford basics like feeding and clothing their children and heating their homes.
The charity’s new report, ‘Nowhere To Run’, finds the number of people receiving crisis support from national or local government has fallen by 73 per cent since the Government devolved responsibility to councils in 2013 and stopped providing a separate cash grant for scheme in 2015.
According to the report, in 2012/13 there were 1.3m applications to the Government for crisis support of which 737,000 were successful.
It finds that the number of successful applications for council-run schemes has also fallen. Data obtained through Freedom of Information requests show in 2015/16, 320,000 applications were made, of which 208,000 were successful. In 2017/18, there were 284,000 applications, of which just 187,000 qualified for help.
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