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Derbyshire Discretionary Fund (DDF)

The Derbyshire Discretionary Fund (DDF) can provide grants or emergency cash payments if you are in urgent need of financial help following a crisis or disaster.


The fund may be able to help you during an emergency or crisis situation and to support you to continue to live independently or cope with exceptional pressure when you have no other source of funding.

The fund may support you to resolve your immediate difficulties. It also puts you in touch with other support and services, so it's less likely to happen again.

Types of awards

There are 2 types of awards potentially available from the Derbyshire Discretionary fund, called:

  • exceptional pressure grant
  • emergency cash payment

Exceptional pressure grant

An exceptional pressure grant may help people who are on one of the following benefits:

  • Income Support
  • income-related Employment and Support Allowance
  • new style Jobseekers' Allowance (where the household income is the same amount as that for income-based Jobseekers' Allowance
  • new style or contributory based Employment and Support Allowance (where the household income is the same amount as that for income related Employment and Support Allowance)
  • Pension Credit
  • Universal Credit where the applicant
    • is a single person with earnings of less than £369 per month in any of the preceding 3 months; or
    • is a couple with earnings of less than £578 per month in any of the preceding 3 months; or
    • is a single person or couple with limited capacity for work or work related activity, with earnings of less than £723 per month in any of the preceding 3 months; or
    • is a single person or couple with either a carer's element to their UC or in receipt of carer's allowance, with earnings of less than £723 per month in any of the preceding 3 months
  • be likely to qualify for one of those benefits when establishing themselves in the community
  • have been on one of these benefits within the last 3 months before making the application, and the reason they are no longer on benefit is that they have started employment

An exceptional pressure grant may help people who have particular difficulties because they need help to:

  • return to living in the community after a time in care
  • remain living at home or in the community rather than going into care
  • ease the exceptional pressure that they and their family are facing
  • settle in the community as part of a re-settlement programme
  • meet certain travelling expenses

If an exceptional pressure grant is awarded it will usually be delivered as items to the applicant directly.

Emergency cash payment

An emergency cash payment may help people when they cannot pay for food, heating or emergency travel which could lead to an immediate and serious risk to the health and safety of the person or their family. This could be because of a disaster or crisis.

If an emergency cash payment is awarded it will be given in voucher form which can be taken to a post office.

Apply for a grant or cash payment

You can apply by phone, tel: 01629 533399.

The team will take some personal information during the call, and then an assessor will phone back to discuss the application in more detail.

The assessor will need to know:

  • the type of payment being applied for
  • if the application is for an emergency cash payment for food, heating, or emergency travel – how a person or family is in crisis and what will happen if help is not quickly made available
  • if the application is for an exceptional pressure grant, which of the particular difficulties listed previously applies to the situation
  • for both types of application, the assessor will ask about what money and savings might be available

Other things to bear in mind

The DDF only make a payment to someone who is over 16, and who lives in Derbyshire.

We can only make payments to those who can demonstrate how and why they are facing financial hardship.

We cannot accept a second application for an exceptional pressure grant for the same item within a 12-month period – whether or not the first application was successful.

We cannot make more than 3 awards for emergency cash payments to the same household within a 12-month period.

We have a limited amount of money and all applications will be assessed on the basis of need, urgency and risk.

We'll seek to share information with applicants about other forms of help and support that are available, which could improve their situation further.