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Disabled Facility Grant Policy

Published: 15/11/2021

A Disabled Facility Grant (DFG) is a mandatory grant to help individuals living with a disability with the cost of adapting their homes to enable them to continue living at their residence with the maximum amount of independence.

A DFG is available to owner-occupiers, private tenants, local authority tenants and, for tenants in social housing, there are separate arrangements in place with their housing provider.

The policy was last reviewed and approved in October 2019.  Work has been ongoing since then to identify and implement improvements to further speed up delivery and recommendations were put forward and approved in September 2020. The approved changes have been incorporated into the revised policy

The maximum amount of grant available in Wales is £36,000 per allocation. Where the application is for a child, or the applicant is in receipt of certain qualifying benefits, there is no means test and the cost of the adaptation up to the maximum grant will generally be awarded. For other applications the amount of the grant will vary from zero to the maximum grant depending on the cost of the approved works and the financial circumstances of the applicant. 

A means test will be carried out to establish, based on the financial circumstances of the applicant, whether the applicant will be required to make a financial contribution to the adaptation costs.

Flintshire’s Cabinet Member for Housing, Councillor Dave Hughes, said:

“The review identified that the Council’s DFG application process did not align to current practices and lacked clarity regarding the criteria that were required to qualify for the grant.

“A significant amount of work has since been carried out to address and implement the recommendations contained within the review. 

“Service delivery has been improved to ensure that our customers, and the professionals who support them, have all the relevant information at the earliest opportunity.”

The Council’s Cabinet will be asked to support the revised policy at its meeting on 16 November.