Crisis and Resilience Fund 2026: How councils are rolling out England's new household safety net

1. Finding 1

   41 of the 45 councils analysed have some Crisis and Resilience Fund support live

   31 councils (69%) are recorded as fully open, and a further 10 (22%) as partially open, where some parts of the scheme are live and others are not.

2. Finding 2

   Rollout is still incomplete for 14 of the 45 councils analysed

   10 partially open, 1 opening soon and 3 with information published but no clear resident-facing opening position. Schemes launching in stages across a financial year is a normal delivery pattern, not a failure.

3. Finding 3

   Emergency cash, money advice and housing costs are the most commonly published strands

   emergency cash (35 of 45), money advice (34 of 45), housing costs (33 of 45), energy (26 of 45) and food (25 of 45). Counts reflect what each council explicitly publishes in the verified SupportFund record.

4. Finding 4

   Housing support is a major strand of the fund

   33 of the 45 councils analysed explicitly publish help with housing costs, often as a separately administered Housing Payment with its own eligibility rules.

5. Finding 5

   Councils are using very different access routes

   Among the 31 councils with a verified application method, 29 publish an online application, alongside telephone routes, referral routes, council-contact routes and, in one case, an automatic award.

6. Finding 6

   Some councils explicitly allow low-income residents to apply even if they are not receiving benefits

   Liverpool City Council, Wigan Council, Wirral Council each state this rule explicitly for crisis support. Other councils may allow the same thing without publishing it in the information SupportFund checked, so no percentage is calculated.

7. Finding 7

   Two-tier areas create more complex access routes for residents

   9 of the councils analysed are upper-tier authorities whose records describe delivery involving district or borough councils or partner organisations, so the route a resident uses depends on where in the county they live.

Councils set their own eligibility rules within the national framework. SupportFund only records a rule where the council states it explicitly, so this is reported as verified examples rather than as a percentage.

• Liverpool City Council

  Not required — Liverpool City Council states applicants do not need to be receiving benefits to apply.

• Wigan Council

  Not required for crisis support. For Housing Payments only: Housing Benefit or Universal Credit with housing costs.

• Wirral Council

  Not required for Crisis Payments. For Housing Payments only: Housing Benefit or Universal Credit with housing support.

Based on SupportFund analysis of official local authority information and UK Government Crisis and Resilience Fund allocation data.