Well given that we are constantly asked the same question “how long does a budgeting loan take ? ” back in December we decided to start a poll to see if we can work ou how log it actually takes in the real world.
The idea Is that it takes around 20 working days for the application to be paid out ( if you have been accepted AND accept the repayment rate)
However, each case is different and because of that there can be a large difference in how long a budgeting loan application takes.
There are things that you can do to try to speed up the process and these are listed below.

1. Download a Budgeting Loan Application, or get it from Job Centre Plus
2. Fill it out clearly and fully
3. Make sure that you have priced things reasonably, as this should result in less checking
4. make sure you sign, date and put your National Insurance number on the form
5. Send it back to the right place!
6. You can replace the 2nd class envelope with a first class to cut postal delays
7. You can deliver it yourself

The Budeting loan process:

• You apply
• Your application is rated
• An offer is made ( or you are refused)
• Your offer is posted to you (2nd class)
• You reply
• The reply is processed
• Payment is issued ( usual taking 3 working days to hit your account)

Please remember to come back and fill out the following poll to give others an idea of how long it is taking to get a budgeting loan.

The Social Find sections will be open as usual for most of the Christmas period, so if you need a loan you can still call the crisis loans telephone number and apply.

However due to public holidays and the fact that all jobcentre plus offices will be closed it is better not to ring on the following days

Monday 26 December
Tuesday 27 December
Wednesday 28 December

As far as we understand the will be an out of hours emergency service available for people who need loans over the Christmas period from the social fund whilst they are closed.

Our advice would be to call the normal number, and if you are not given advice on what to do next, then go to your local police station and ask if they can help- the police should have telephone numbers for social services, or the designated contact of the social fund in your area and they should be able to help.

Crisis Loans for rent

Given the recent economic crisis, many people are finding that they are falling behind on rent payemnts or that they are no longer able to afford the rent at the property that they live at and this is causing an increase in the number of people allplying to the government run social find crisis loans section for help with rent payments.

However due to the fact that the Social fund was set up long before the recent crisis, there is no provision for help with paying off rent arrears as part of the scheme.

Although some people may still be able to get som ehelp with rent if it is for a new tennancy, that has had to be taken out due to health and safety risks ast the old address.

This type of application is called a rent in advance crisis loan and can either be applied for in writing is you expect to move in several weeks or over the telephone if you are planning on moving in the next couple of days.

Read more HERE

To get an understanding of how much was paid out in crisis loans in the last year he have found the following figures

The information is as follows:

Cuts to the level and availability of crisis loans could drive thousands of vulnerable people into the hands of loan sharks, according to an MSP.

Fiona McLeod said disabled, pensioner and single parent households need access to Social Fund Crisis Loans, but the UK Government plans to put an annual cap on them.

The SNP MSP said the Westminster Government wants to put a limit of three crisis loan awards per household for general living expenses in a rolling 12-month period.

A recent parliamentary question revealed that more than 700,000 loans were approved for people who had already required four or more loans over the last year alone.

Ms McLeod, the MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, said: “Cutting support for people at a moment of crisis must be the Tories’ cruellest cut yet.

“It will impact on the most vulnerable households, and could drive thousands into the hands of loan sharks, making their financial difficulties even worse.

“It is clear from the Government’s own figures that hundreds of thousands of people, who have been granted four or more loans in a 12-month period, would lose access to this lifeline support.

“These awards must be based on need, not an arbitrary cap set by ministers in Whitehall.

“By their nature, crisis loans are a last resort, and the fact that so many people have had to take out these loans should underline the difficulties that households are facing.

“Instead of trying to help, the Tory Government are making things much more painful. These are loans that people pay back, so these cuts are not about saving money.”

Below are all of the latest contact telephone numbers for benefit delivery centres  that process social security benefits for the UK. Simply look for the closest job centre plus office to your home address

Crisis Loan Telephone Numbers:

You should contact Jobcentre Plus on the number below if you need to apply for a Crisis Loan to cover: • living expenses • urgent rent in advance Telephone: 0800 032 7952 If you have speech or hearing difficulties you can use the following textphone number. Textphone: 0800 032 7958 Lines are open Monday to Friday, from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm.

Benefit delivery centre contact Telephone Numbers:

A

Aberdeen 0845 608 8749

Arbroath 0845 600 1506 / 0845 608 8749

B

Barnsley 0845 608 8560

Basildon 0845 608 8575

Bathgate 0845 608 8630

Belfast 0845 608 8770 / 0845 603 5759

Birkenhead 0845 608 8529

Bolton 0845 608 8531

Bradford 0845 608 8556

Bristol 0845 608 8597

Burnley 0845 608 8502

Bury St Edmunds 0845 608 8618

C

Caerphilly 0845 608 8562

Cannock 0845 608 8676

Canterbury 0845 608 8501

Carlisle 0845 608 8545

Chester 0845 608 8534

Chesterfield 0845 608 8521

Chippenham 0845 608 8621

Chorlton 0845 608 8504

Clyde and Fife 0845 608 8582

Clydebank 0845 600 1506

Coatbridge 0845 608 8645

Cosham 0845 608 8573

D

Derby 0845 608 8506

Doncaster 0845 608 8508

Dover 0845 608 8626

E

Exeter 0845 608 8564

G

Glasgow 0845 603 6347

Gloucester 0845 608 8624

Greenock 0845 608 8598

H

Hackney 0845 600 6334

Halifax 0845 608 8548

Handsworth 0845 608 8648

Hanley 0845 608 8673

Hastings 0845 608 8757

Hull 0845 608 8546

Huyton 0845 608 8535

Hyde 0845 608 8526

I

Ilford 0845 600 2612

Inverness 0845 600 1506

K

Kilmarnock 0845 608 8632

L

Leeds 0845 608 8590

Leicester 0845 608 8525

Lincoln 0845 608 8532

Llanelli 0845 608 8554

Luton 0845 608 8627

M

Makerfield 0845 377 6001

Mansfield 0845 608 8521

Merthyr Tydfil 0845 608 8552

Milton Keynes 0845 608 8573

N

Newcastle 0845 608 8642

Newport 0845 608 8569 / 0845 600 3018

Norwich 0845 608 8571

Nottingham 0845 608 8528

O

Oldham 0845 608 8523

P

Peterborough 0845 608 8603

Plymouth 0845 603 6095

Preston 0845 608 8524

R

Ramsgate 0845 608 8626

Ravenhurst 0845 608 8657

S

Sheffield 0845 600 1267

St Austell 0845 608 8578

St Helens 0845 608 8503

Stockton 0845 600 8643

Stratford 0845 600 0148

Sunderland 0845 608 8637

T

Totton 0845 608 8620

W

Walsall 0845 602 0206

Watford 0845 608 8583

Wellingborough 0845 609 4904

Wolverhampton 0845 600 3115

Worcester 0845 608 8665

Worthing 0845 608 8715

Wrexham 0845 600 3016

Y

York 0845 608 8550

Changes to the Crisis Loan rules are being introduced from 4 April 2011, which will help to control expenditure, reduce abuse of the system and ensure funds are used for those in genuine need.

The three planned changes to the Crisis Loan system will mean that the Department will:

• No longer pay Crisis Loans for items – cookers, beds for example. Rent in advance, charges for board and lodging, accommodation and residential charges for hostels are the only exceptions to this. There will be continuing support from the Community Care Grant scheme for people who meet the qualifying conditions
• Customers not eligible for a Community Care Grant will be considered for a Crisis Loan if there has been a disaster impacting themselves or their household, such as flooding
• Reduce the daily rate paid for living expenses from 75 per cent down to 60 per cent of benefit rate. This will align with the position for Jobseeker’s Allowance cases paid at the hardship rate
• Restrict Crisis Loan awards for living expenses in a rolling twelve-month period to a maximum of three. This policy was tested by Jobcentre Plus in 2009/10
• Since 2006, the number of Crisis Loan awards has tripled and continues to grow, largely independent of the recession. The changes to the Crisis Loan scheme from April will help to manage demand back towards pre-2006 levels.

This will ensure funding for Community Care Grants is protected and that DWP is able to pay Budgeting Loans throughout the year. Without these measures, Budgeting Loans would need to be withdrawn before Christmas. This would leave significant numbers of people on low incomes with little alternative but to turn to high-cost or illegal lending.

A new rule that was first reported to have been tested lats year has resurfaced its head again.

The 3 strikes rule basically says that you can only have 3 crisis loans in any 12 month period for things like lost, stolen or spent money- or any other event that was not unforeseen or unavoidable.

this does not apply to alignment to benefits (payments of Crisis loans whilst other benefit is being processed or decided)

The last time this was implemented it was imposed from the day of the change onwards, meaning that any applications from 4/4/11 will count toward your 3 ( previous apps wont count, but if you have had two in the last rolling 12 months then you will still need to go into your closest participating job centre for a face to face interview)

APPEALS-

Now – even though you may be automatically turned down under direction 14 (already had 3 loans) rules you can still ask for a review, to do this you will need to state why the situation was not foreseen, and was unavoidable.

it is expected that you will be turned down after this first appeal stage, and you will then need to ask for your case to be sent to the IRS independent review service, who are not part of the Department For Work and pensions and will give your case a fair hearing( usually within 48 hours of referral)

The Social Fund Contact Telephone Number for the crisis loans sections has recently changed, for those of you that don’t know, the crisis loan telephone service (same day applications for living expenses) is run on a virtual network- this means that your call could be answered by any Benefit Centre dealing with social fund telephone calls in the UK.

Although the previous Social Fund Contact Telephone Number remains active for 3 months, your should Now call 08000 327952

Previously all offices had their own 0800 contact number, however as of this month their is one national social fund number for same day applications.

As before the DWP have made it difficult to find ( 6 pages into the direct gov site!) so here it is - 08000 327952

Social fund times

For those that want to know when the best times to call the social fund are, we have designed a quick reference chart based on the success we have had with calling the social fund for a crisis loan or budgeting loan sections at different times of the day.

This guide is aimed at those who want to call for a crisis loan, and are in need of help on the same day- but if you want to check the progress of a paper application, as a general rule you will wait for a much shorter time if you call early on a Tuesday, as opposed to midday on a Monday or on a Friday at any time from 10:00!

This graph represents the number of calls that were answered within 10 minutes, a different times each day.

The time for the social fund are:

Open at 8:30

Last payment at 4:30 ( most offices)

lines CLOSE AT 5:00 (no payments/ applications after 4:30 will be paid the next day)

The overwhelming feeling that we came away with was that the best time to contact the social find for a crisis loan over the phone was between 8:30 and 945 on a Tuesday, during this period our wait time was the shortest and we also found that the 7 social fund decision makers that we spoke to seemed to be a little more accepting of our  reasons for calling and this resulted in a shorter call time and also a higher than usual percentage of applications that we made being successful.

What we took away from this was that like everyone else, these guys are pressured and have pre assessed opinions of the people that they speak to and thinking about it- it does make more sense that the genuine callers to the social fund would call first thing in the morning if they were truly in crisis.

I mean if I was faced  with not eating and having to spend a day or two with no electricity of gas then I would try sorting it out as soon as I possibly could- conversely, if I were just “trying t on” after spending too much on a night out, then I would probably call around lunch time or early afternoon , once I had slept off my hangover!