Questions have been raised about why the decision to take £2million from Dorset Council reserves for a cost of living support fund did not go through the budget process.

Although welcoming the extra money, several opposition councillors claim the normal process had not been followed – with no mention of the fund at a previous cabinet meeting, full council, or during the ‘budget café’ sessions, depriving councillors of the right to debate the scope and scale of the fund.

The idea of the fund was put forward by Conservative council leader Cllr Spencer Flower following his visit to a community centre where he was told, first-hand, of some of the problems people are now facing.

Weymouth Green councillor Brian Heatley said that although he welcomed setting up the fund, he was concerned about the general principle of taking money from reserves, just a short time after the budget had been set – claiming that, in total, more than £50m had been removed from reserves in a relatively short time.

The view was shared by Dorchester councillor Richard Biggs, who chairs the council’s audit committee, although he was told that financial officers considered the remaining reserve funds were adequate for the authority.

Cllr Biggs said consideration also ought to have been given to a community project with Dorset growers, helping the local economy directly through the fund, rather than offer supermarket vouchers.

Weymouth councillor David Gray also welcomed the fund – but questioned how it would be distributed across the county, telling the meeting that six out of the seven most deprived communities in Dorset were in Weymouth and Portland.

He asked for a break-down of the geographical distribution after the fund had been spent.

Cllr Heatley also told the meeting that what he said was £500,000 set aside to help with insultation costs within the £2m fund, was a relatively small sum.

“Let us not kid ourselves. This is a tiny programme, if it helps a hundred houses we will have done well, but we have 200,000 homes in Dorset so it would take 2,000 years to cover if the programme were this size,” he said, claiming that insulation was usually the ‘poor relation’ in energy policy, yet was capable of producing big savings over the longer term.

Purbeck councillor Beryl Ezzard said she would have like to see more money in the fund and raised concerns about how it would be distributed - worrying that it would be 'first come-first served' and would quickly disappear without necessarily reaching those most in need.

Portfolio holder Cllr Laura Beddow said the support from the fund would be distributed through well-established channels involving council staff and partner organisations to ensure that it reached those most in need.