The Secretary of State’s Annual Report on the Social Fund for 2007/08 (Cm 7483) was published today and has been laid before Parliament.

The report records that total gross expenditure in 2007-08, excluding winter fuel payments, was £944 million. This included over 247,000 non-repayable community care grants and over 2.6 million interest free loans together worth over £771 million, funeral and cold weather payments totalling almost £50 million and more than 243,000 Sure Start maternity grants worth more than £123 million. In addition 8.8 million households benefited from a winter fuel payment at a cost of around £2.1 billion.