Sixth iteration of Household Support Fund opened with £500 million for England

The sixth iteration of the Household Support Fund, known as HSF6, ran from 1 October 2024 to 31 March 2025, with £500 million of funding allocated to Local Authorities in England¹. The scheme is one of a number of benefit and tax changes recorded in the Family Resources Survey quality and methodology report for 2024/25, published by the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland¹.

The same report sets out other changes affecting household incomes in 2024/25. The High Income Child Benefit Tax Charge threshold increased from £50,000 in 2023/24 to £60,000 in 2024/25¹. The National Living Wage age threshold was lowered on 1 April 2024 from those aged 23 and over to those aged 21 and over¹. The Advanced Rate of income tax was introduced from 6 April 2024 for the 2024/25 tax year, applying to income between £75,001 and £125,140 at a rate of 45%¹. A rate was also reduced by 2 percentage points to 8% from 6 April 2024¹; the report does not name the tax in the quoted line.

The report also records the extension of funded childcare: in September 2024 this was extended to eligible working parents of children from 9 months to two years¹.

The publication is Northern Ireland focused and carries a methodological warning. It states that it now uses an updated methodology which replaces survey responses relating to major state benefits and tax credits with administrative data¹, and that the introduction of administrative data creates a break in the time series from 2021/22 onwards, with revised estimates produced for 2021/22 to 2023/24¹. It adds that figures before and after the break should not be directly compared, and that the inclusion of administrative benefit data generally leads to higher recorded incomes, particularly for those on lower incomes¹.

The report describes the change as reflecting better measurement rather than a change in people's circumstances¹. It also notes that the Northern Ireland survey collects detailed information from approximately 2,000 households annually, with information from approximately 1,700 households collected in 2024/25¹.

Why it matters for households

The £500 million for England under HSF6 was allocated to Local Authorities, which decide how the money is used locally; the report does not set out eligibility rules or payment amounts¹. The funding period ran from 1 October 2024 to 31 March 2025, so any support funded through HSF6 falls within that window¹. Separate Barnett funding was provided to the devolved governments, meaning provision in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is not covered by the England allocation figure¹.

For households in Northern Ireland, the income statistics used to describe benefit receipt and tax credits now draw on administrative data rather than survey answers, and the report says this generally raises recorded incomes, especially at the lower end¹. Because the figures before and after 2021/22 are not directly comparable, comparisons of household income over that period should be treated with caution¹. The report also notes that further changes are planned, including replacing survey reported earnings with administrative data and updating how statistics are scaled to population totals, and that this transition will last for a number of years¹.

The tax and wage changes listed above took effect from April 2024, and the childcare extension from September 2024¹. The report does not give the effect of any of these measures on individual households.

What happens next

The report states that earnings linkage and a new grossing regime are planned to follow in later years, and that the temporary suspension of accredited official statistics designation will allow further investigation of Northern Ireland specific impacts, with the aim of producing a revised, consistent back series once all transformation components are implemented¹. No date is given for that back series¹.