This feature describes how a Scottish Council has successfully used prepayment cards to make crisis payments from its welfare fund.

Fife Council is third largest Scottish Council, providing hundreds of different services to the residents, businesses and visitors of Fife. In 2015, Fife Council first started working with one of the leading UK payment specialist allpay, to disburse crisis payments for the Council’s Scottish Welfare Fund scheme through allpay’s prepaid card solution. The programme provides cardholders with funds to purchase items classed as living expenses, fuel, food, clothing, travel, utility payments and essential and day to day living expenses. In 2018 alone, the Council loaded more than £85k onto prepaid card accounts.

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Mike Winter, CEO of MIW Water Cooler Experts, explains how drinking fountains can counter the blight of plastic waste.

Barely a day goes by when we don’t see a story in the media about the blight of plastic on our society – its effect on wildlife, rising litter levels in our rivers and on our beaches, and the emergence of microplastics in some fish and seafood. According to DEFRA, the UK recycling rate for waste from households is steadily increasing (up to nearly 46% in 2017), and we seem to be on track to meet the 2020 target of recycling at least 50% of household waste; but recycling alone will not solve the problem – we need to take steps to reduce the amount of plastic we actually use on a daily basis.

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