By Penny Rimmer, Senior Policy Officer at Resolve Poverty
The government’s announcement of a new Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF) marks a long-overdue change in how crisis support is delivered in England. Set to replace the short-term Household Support Fund (HSF) from April 2026, the introduction of a multi-year settlement signals a move away from the cycle of last-minute extensions that have left councils and communities in limbo.
We work on local strategic and policy responses to poverty, and we see localities having a fund to respond to the financial challenges faced by residents as an essential component of locally led anti-poverty efforts. The move to establish the CRF is therefore a positive step.
For years, we’ve called for permanent, ring-fenced crisis support in England, alongside a strengthened national social security system. Too often, local crisis schemes have functioned as a sticking plaster for deeper systemic failings. The HSF helped councils respond to urgent needs (and in some cases bring declining local welfare assistance schemes back to life), but its ad-hoc nature and lack of long-term planning left many struggling to deliver consistent support.
But this is just the starting point. To truly move from crisis management to poverty prevention, we must also strengthen the design and delivery of local welfare. That means clearer national guidance rooted in a ‘cash-first’ and advice-based approach, with sustainable funding and space for local flexibility. Local crisis support should offer rapid, dignified assistance but also act as a gateway to wider services that prevent hardship from escalating.
We welcomed the reference made alongside the CRF announcement to ending reliance on food banks. Delivering on that ambition means prioritising direct financial support alongside tailored advice and wraparound help giving people the means to regain stability without needing emergency food provision.
We’ve long argued for a model that provides direct financial support during moments of crisis, alongside tailored advice, and wraparound help. This kind of investment helps people regain stability, prevents destitution, and reduces reliance on emergency food provision.
To be effective, the CRF must also address the postcode lottery of crisis provision that has left too many people without help when they need it. In 2023/24, 36 local authorities in England offered no Local Welfare Assistance at all, leaving 14.1 million people — nearly a quarter of the population — without access to local crisis support. This level of inequality cannot be allowed to continue.
The CRF’s emphasis on “resilience” must also be clearly defined. It cannot mean expecting people to absorb financial shocks alone. True resilience comes from a system that prevents crisis in the first place through strong advice infrastructure, links to preventative services, and integration with wider local anti-poverty strategies. Councils preparing delivery plans under the forthcoming guidance need support to do just that.
Bringing Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) under the same umbrella could help streamline access and facilitate more integrated local delivery. But the numbers matter. Once inflation is taken into account, the £1 billion annual settlement, now expected to cover both the CRF and DHPs, amounts to a real terms cut compared to previous years.
In 2023/24, just 21% of HSF funding was spent on direct cash payments, while a much larger share of 44% went toward covering Free School Meals during school holidays. This illustrates how crisis funds have increasingly been used to patch gaps in core services, rather than providing the kind of short-term, targeted support they were originally intended for.
The CRF can support a more preventative and joined-up approach but only if it is part of broader reform. In our recent Mission Critical report, we set out what a whole-system response to poverty should involve: strengthening the role of local and regional government, reforming social security, and replacing short-term crisis funding with long-term, sustainable solutions.
Its introduction signals a more serious recognition by central government of the role councils play in poverty prevention. However, turning this shift into a meaningful impact will require national commitment not just to implementation, but also to tackling the underlying drivers of financial insecurity.
This includes aligning the CRF with wider policy efforts. Importantly, it must be developed in conjunction with the Government’s forthcoming national Child Poverty Strategy. Supporting children cannot be separated from helping families, and local crisis schemes should complement, not compensate for the lack of, adequate income, housing, and public services.
While some may argue local crisis funds shouldn’t be necessary, the reality is there will always be a need for some form of provision — even with a strong national social security system in place. Historically, there has always been a local safety net, from the centrally administered Social Fund before 2013 to today’s local schemes. What matters is ensuring that crisis support is in place to protect people from immediate hardship, while recognising that the better the wider system works, the more local funding can be focused on prevention, advice, and helping people avoid crisis in the first place.
Whether the CRF delivers genuine change will depend on what happens next. This announcement should be the start of something far more ambitious: a transition from reactive crisis management to a properly resourced, preventative welfare state — one that works in partnership with local government, not against it. Making this a reality will require sustained investment, clear national direction, and coordinated delivery across central and local government.
We look forward to working with government, councils, and fellow members of the national Save Our Local Safety Net campaign to ensure the essential role of local crisis support in protecting individuals and families from financial hardship is recognised, strengthened, and embedded for the long term.
This is the third in our serialisation of policy recommendations from our Mission Critical report. Our next article will outline our recommendation for why better data sharing is necessary for local and regional government to effectively tackle poverty.
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This article is featured in our 16 July newsletter.
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