Written question WQ98014

The Welsh Government is providing £360,000 under the Sustainable Social Services grant scheme in order to support the Family Fund’s Take A Break Wales scheme this financial year. Take A Break Wales helps families of disabled and seriously ill children to enable carers to have a break from caring responsibilities – in 2025 the programme awarded grants to 900 families of disabled children in Wales.

To ensure that the scheme can support as many families as possible, in 2018-19 the Family Fund, who administer the scheme, decided that they will only consider applications from families who have not received a grant under the scheme in the last 24 months. The same restriction is in place for similar grant schemes run by the Family Fund in England and Scotland.

Welsh Government officials meet regularly with the Family Fund to review the operation of the Take A Break Wales scheme. There are currently no plans to review the 24-month restriction on reapplications.

However, as we set out in a Written Statement on 19 December on Welsh Government funding for the third sector in social care, for 2027-28 we are proposing to run an application-based and rigorous process, developed with engagement with the third sector and informed by the code of practice for funding the third sector, to re-consider and re-shape delivery under our principal grant funding for social care third sector organisations.