A new era for local welfare: maximising the impact of the Crisis and Resilience Fund

When designed well, local crisis support provides timely support and acts as a gateway into wider services that help stabilise people’s situations and reduce the need for repeated access. However, in England, this support has been inconsistent and fragile. Since the abolition of the Social Fund in 2013, responsibility for crisis support has sat with local authorities without a clear national settlement. Over time, provision has been shaped by short‐term funding cycles and local priorities rather than being a coherent system able to respond effectively when people need support. This has led to significant variation between areas.

The Household Support Fund (HSF) played an important role in recent years, providing vital support during a period of rising living costs. However, its short‐term nature limited the ability of local authorities to plan, invest and develop more sustainable approaches.

The introduction of the Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF) represents a significant shift. From April 2026 to March 2029, £842 million per year will be allocated to local authorities in England to support people experiencing financial crisis and strengthen financial resilience over time. This is the first multi‐year settlement for local crisis support in over a decade. It reflects growing recognition of and investment in the essential role of local welfare provision.

The CRF replaces the HSF and introduces a more stable funding model. The guidance for the new fund has been co‐designed by local authorities, civil society organisations, people with lived experience, academics and a national coalition of anti‐poverty organisations, researchers, local authorities and practitioners, the Crisis Support Working Group (CSWG). The change reflects years of sustained campaigning across the sector for a longer‐term, more strategic approach to local crisis support. Through our work with local authorities and our role in the CSWG, Resolve Poverty1 has been at the forefront of this work, consistently making the case for a properly funded system of local welfare provision that complements, not compensates for, a strong national social security system.

The CRF should be understood not simply as a funding stream to administer, but as a strategic lever for local anti‐poverty action. Its value lies in how it is used to shape local systems: strengthening crisis support, building financial resilience and embedding local welfare provision within wider anti‐poverty strategies.

A turning point for local welfare

The CRF marks a shift from reactive, short‐term crisis response toward a more strategic focus on prevention and financial resilience. While locally delivered crisis support will always remain necessary, a stronger emphasis on resilience creates opportunities to reduce the need for repeat emergency assistance.

This change sits within a wider policy landscape that places renewed emphasis on tackling poverty. In December 2025, the UK government published the first national Child Poverty Strategy2 in almost a decade. Presented as an initial step, it sets a clear direction of travel and places greater emphasis on the role of local areas in improving outcomes for children and families.

The Strategy also sits alongside wider developments, including the Financial Inclusion Strategy, the NHS 10 Year Health Plan and the English Devolution Bill, reinforcing a stronger focus on prevention, early support and co‐ordinated local responses. The CRF guidance reflects this approach, encouraging local authorities to ensure the fund does not operate in isolation but connects with local priorities such as child poverty, financial inclusion, homelessness and employment. For example, this means strengthening links with Council Tax Support, advice services and income maximisation work, ensuring crisis assistance is embedded within local support systems.

At the same time, the CRF is being introduced in a challenging environment. Local authorities face rising council tax debt, growing demand for welfare and advice services, and increasing expectations tied to wider programmes such as Best Start Family Hubs, the Holiday Activities and Food programme and expanded free school meals (FSM) provision. These initiatives represent crucial progress in tackling poverty and strengthening support for families but are being implemented within a complex system where financial and capacity pressures make delivery more difficult.

These wider pressures and expectations are already shaping how local authorities are approaching implementation of the CRF. Insights from Resolve Poverty’s work with local authorities highlight both the opportunities and challenges surrounding the Fund. The move to a three‐year settlement is widely welcomed and creates space for more strategic planning and longer‐term development. However, many areas are still in the early stages of shaping their approach, with delivery plans due by 1 July and key implementation decisions still being worked through. Approaches will continue to evolve as local areas test, refine and adapt their delivery models over time.

These wider pressures are particularly visible in discussions about support for families with children. Under the HSF, much discretionary support was channelled into food provision and FSM vouchers during school holidays.3 In many areas, this became a core element of local help for families in financial difficulty, reflecting both the scale of need and the practicality of using established systems to deliver support quickly.

The transition to the CRF brings these issues into sharper focus. The Fund sets the expectation of moving away from short‐term crisis responses solely toward more targeted and sustainable forms of support that aim to strengthen financial resilience over time. Local authorities and partners are already undertaking much of this work. However, they must navigate difficult policy and delivery trade‐offs as in many cases they need to adapt how support is prioritised and delivered while still responding to significant hardship and public expectations for visible, immediate help. They are also acutely aware of the risk of appearing as outliers compared with neighbouring councils and are mindful of avoiding a patchwork of provision across areas. This highlights the complexity of balancing immediate crisis response and creating space for more preventative, resilience‐focused approaches to be properly established.

The CRF, therefore, needs to be understood as part of a wider response to poverty rather than a standalone solution. Its long‐term impact will depend on how effectively local areas are able to connect crisis support with wider prevention, advice and financial inclusion activity.

Building stronger local support systems

Whether the CRF achieves its ambition will depend largely on how local systems are designed and delivered in practice.

A central element of this is the expectation that local authorities adopt a cash‐first approach to crisis support, prioritising monetary payments as the default while retaining flexibility to respond to individual circumstances. This shift matters. Monetary support enables people to respond to their own needs, whether that means purchasing food, utilities or other essentials. It offers dignity, choice and flexibility that in‐kind provision, such as vouchers, cannot match. National and international evidence challenges and dismantles negative assumptions about spending behaviour associated with monetary payments, showing that it is largely spent on essentials and delivers positive benefits for local authorities and the local economy through efficient delivery and increased local spending.

However, a cash‐first approach does not mean cash‐only. Cash‐first approaches are most effective when embedded alongside debt advice, income maximisation and employment support, ensuring crisis payments form part of a broader approach to financial resilience. The experience of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham provides a clear example of how this can work in practice. A hardship grant pilot found that 99 per cent of recipients used monetary support as intended, primarily for food, utilities and essential household costs.4 Building on this, the council embedded a cash‐first approach across different areas, including Local Welfare Assistance (LWA), support for households with no recourse to public funds and frontline advice services.

This has been combined with debt advice, income maximisation and employment support, alongside the use of data to identify those most at risk. As a result, crisis support acts as an entry point into wider support, helping to address immediate need while supporting longer‐term stability.

Alongside crisis payments, the guidance places clear emphasis on resilience services, with local authorities expected to invest in support that improves people’s ability to manage and recover from financial shocks. Delivery models differ across areas, depending on local infrastructure, capacity, and existing partnerships. Approaches include in‐house provision, externally commissioned services, and partnership‐based delivery with voluntary and community organisations. The effectiveness of these services depends not only on what is available, but on how visible, connected and responsive they are within local communities.

Many people facing financial pressure do not access support early, or at all. Low awareness of available help, digital exclusion, stigma, previous negative experiences and a lack of trust in services can all prevent people from seeking support. Addressing these barriers means bringing support closer to people, making it easier to access and trust, and ensuring it is culturally appropriate and shaped by the communities it serves.

Trusted settings play a vital role. Co‐locating advice and support in settings such as GP surgeries, schools, libraries and community organisations can improve access to and engagement with services. When services are visible and embedded locally, people are more likely to access help earlier and connect to wider support.

The CRF also places strong emphasis on community co‐ordination. The aim is not to create entirely new systems but to better connect what already exists, strengthening partnerships and referral pathways across statutory services, voluntary organisations and grassroots initiatives. At its best, this supports a ‘no wrong door’ approach, where individuals can access help through multiple entry points and be connected to the right support quickly and effectively.

In practical terms, this may involve investing in co‐ordination roles, developing shared referral systems, improving data sharing and co‐locating services within community settings. It also includes working across boundaries, recognising that people’s needs do not always align neatly with administrative geographies, and building partnerships at a regional level, including with Mayoral Strategic Authorities.

Bolton Council provides an example of how crisis funding can support wider anti‐poverty activity within local systems. Through Resolve Poverty’s partnership with the council on its Tackling Poverty Strategy,5 we have seen how the HSF has been used flexibly to reach communities most in need. This included partially funding an HR assistant role focused on outreach, building relationships within communities, and supporting residents in accessing employment opportunities. When effectively linked to advice, employment and wider services, this approach can help address underlying barriers and contribute to longer‐term financial resilience.

Tools that support co‐ordination are equally important in making this work. Resolve Poverty’s Money Advice Referral Tool (MART) is one example: a locally tailored, co‐produced tool designed to support residents and frontline professionals who are not money advice specialists to identify financial hardship early and connect people to the right local support. Through simple and accessible questions, the MART helps identify underlying issues driving financial difficulty, supports warm referrals and early intervention, and encourages more supportive, trauma‐informed conversations about money pressures.6 This helps reduce stigma, makes it easier for residents to disclose financial difficulty, and strengthens the local support landscape by embedding responses to poverty across different parts of the local system.

Looking ahead: securing the future of local welfare provision

The next three years will be an important period for the future of local welfare provision in England. Local authorities now have the opportunity to strengthen and refine more integrated and preventative approaches to support.

This period should be understood as one of learning and development. Local areas now have the space to strengthen partnerships, build on existing provision and better understand what works. Robust monitoring and evaluation will be key to shaping what comes next. Local authorities should be supported not only to fulfil reporting requirements, but also to build a clearer understanding of the wider impact of local welfare support, including quantitative outcomes, people’s experiences of accessing support, how effectively local systems and partnerships function, and the conditions needed for support to succeed.

Building financial resilience takes time, and many of the intended impacts of the CRF will only emerge over the longer term as support becomes embedded within local systems and relationships develop. Effective local welfare provision can make a tangible difference to people’s financial stability, wellbeing and resilience, while also helping to reduce pressure on wider public services. Evidence from End Furniture Poverty suggests that for every £1 invested in LWA, local authorities can realise savings of more than £9 through reduced demand on services such as homelessness support and social care, with wider public sector savings exceeding £14.7

This evidence and learning will be increasingly important as financial pressure on households remains high and many local authorities and advice providers operate under extremely stretched financial and staffing constraints. In some areas, the CRF is already being used to sustain provision that may otherwise be reduced or lost altogether. The growing number of councils facing severe financial difficulty, including those that have issued or are at risk of issuing de facto bankruptcy notices,8 further highlights the fragility of local welfare provision without dedicated and protected funding.

Looking beyond the current CRF settlement ending in 2029, establishing a statutory duty underpinned by continued ring‐fenced central government funding would help secure the future of local welfare provision. Without this, there is a risk that progress made over the next three years will not be sustained, with provision continuing to vary significantly between areas and access to support remaining dependent on where people live. A funded statutory framework would provide greater consistency and long‐term stability, ensuring local welfare support is protected rather than left vulnerable to shifting political and financial priorities.

Towards a more co-ordinated and preventative system

The CRF represents a significant moment for local welfare provision in England. It offers the chance to move beyond short‐term crisis response towards a more co‐ordinated and preventative system that supports both immediate need and longer‐term financial resilience.

Realising this potential will depend on how the Fund is implemented, how learning is used to refine delivery, and on continued investment in the capacity and stability of local systems. While the Fund can make a real difference, its success ultimately sits within a wider context of poverty reduction and the adequacy of social security support.

The next three years are a vital window of opportunity to strengthen delivery, build evidence and demonstrate what effective local welfare provision can achieve. The priority now is to secure that progress for the longer term, ensuring local welfare provision becomes an enduring pillar of the social safety net.