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Although it has already cost the public purse £285 million, only two households have been helped by the Mortgage Rescue Scheme (MRS) introduced last year in the wake of the financial crisis.

And with repossession figures still at worryingly high levels, the government's flagship scheme has come under fire for failing to support enough people and for reacting sluggishly to new applications.

Whittling down the numbers

While the number of people who have actually been assisted by the programme has provoked angry reactions from a number of parties, the Communities and Local Government figures show that the failings of the of the scheme cannot be put down to a lack of interest.

In April alone, some 1,084 people experiencing mortgage difficulty applied for support from the MRS, while 1,152 households applied in March.

However, the majority of these applications were rejected on the grounds that while people may have been having difficulty paying off their mortgage, they were not deemed to be in an at-risk category.

Under the current terms of the scheme, only those who are pregnant, disabled, elderly or caring for dependent children and are at risk of repossession will be approved for support.

Commenting on the revelation that only one family had been helped by the MRS in April, Liberal Democrat shadow housing minister Sarah Teather said: "Ministers should be ashamed that only one family has been helped by their mortgage rescue scheme, months after it was announced to great fanfare.

"Mortgage law needs urgent reform to give courts the power to ensure that repossessions are only ever a last resort."

Playing the waiting game

The scheme has also come under fire for the amount of time that a claim typically takes to process, with government figures suggesting that the average case takes between three and five months to resolve.

Speaking to the BBC, a spokesperson for Communities and Local Government said that there are currently around 70 applications which are in the final stages of evaluation, suggesting that there may be a considerable jump in the number of people who benefit from the MRS in the coming weeks.

However, with the scheme now up and running for more than six months, the government has under a year and a half to widen its support considerably if it is to meet its target of extending the MRS to 6,000 struggling Britons by January 2011.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has insisted that the number of people with access to the MRS is likely to increase as it is properly bedded in, while the Homeowner Mortgage Support programme is also expected to boost the government's arsenal considerably as it battles to keep people in their homes.

"As these schemes begin to have a meaningful impact over the coming months, the likelihood is that the number of claims issued will continue to weaken," the group claims.

"As a result, it now looks likely that the number of homes repossessed during the course of the year will fall some short of the widely projected estimate of 75,000," it adds, predicting that repossessions figures may fall as low as 50,000 by the end of this year.

How to get help with repayments

While the MRS scheme has attracted much criticism due to it only being made available to a relatively small number of people, the government's Homeowner Mortgage Support scheme has been designed to help any homeowner who has difficulty keeping up with repayments after suffering an income shock arising from incidents such as redundancy or illness.

The scheme was made available on April 21st 2009 and allows people to make smaller mortgage repayments for up to two years as they get back on their feet financially.

For those who are worried they may be in for a financial shock in the coming months, it may be worth contacting their bank to check whether they are taking part in the support scheme.

Many high street lenders rolled out the scheme when it was first introduced, while a number of other banks, building societies and specialist lenders have insisted they will offer the support as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, for those who find their bank is not taking part, DirectGov reminds customers that Barclays, HSBC, Nationwide and Santander have all agreed to offer an alternative scheme that offers similar payment cuts as the banks look to maintain their commitment to ensuring that repossessions are always a last resort, no matter how dire their customers' financial situation becomes.

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