Professional Referral Energy Voucher Scheme

Further to the recent communication dated Wednesday 8 March sent by the Kent Free School Meal Team regarding energy vouchers for families with children in receipt of Free School Meals, we are writing to make you aware of a referral scheme that is available to families that are not eligible for Free School Meals.

Help is available in the form of a £100 Post Office cash out voucher to non-eligible Free School Meal families through Kent County Councils professional referral energy voucher scheme (subject to the eligibility criteria below) - this payment is to be used towards the household energy bill. If you know of other organisations that would benefit from access to this scheme, please provide their details to helping.hands@kent.gov.uk.

Who is eligible?

There is an expectation for professionals to complete due diligence checks of applications to ensure that recipients of vouchers meet the eligibility criteria as set out below.

Applicants must:

• be aged 16 or over
• be a Kent resident, permanently living within one of the 12 local authorities covered by Kent County Council (this excludes Medway, Bromley, and Bexley)
• be in receipt of means tested benefits, or household income is less than £30,000 per annum before tax
• not have savings above £250
• not be receiving free school meal support within their household*.

*Free School Meal eligible families will receive an additional energy voucher for each eligible child through their child’s school outside of this scheme by Friday 17 March 2023.

Residents with no recourse to public funding are still eligible for the scheme. If a National Insurance number is not available, please email helping.hands@kent.gov.uk with circumstances and reasons why the applicant should receive this support (please attach all supporting evidence to the email).

Register to become a referrer

If you have not referred into the scheme previously, please complete the form to register as a referrer

Household Support Fund Application 

If support is required because of the increase in cost of living, please complete the form to apply for the Household Support Fund

Voucher timescales

You will receive a message to confirm the outcome of your application. This message will go to you only, not the voucher recipient. We do aim to send vouchers out as quickly as possible, however there will be high demand for vouchers, and this could impact on timescales.

Application form completion guide and Frequently Asked Questions

If you would like a copy of our application guide to provide you with a list of information required prior to completing the online application, or our frequently asked questions booklet - please email helping.hands@kent.gov.uk.

Queries

If you have any queries, please email helping.hands@kent.gov.uk.