A local financial support scheme for people with low incomes, the crisis and resilience fund (CRF), was introduced on 1 April.
It replaces the household support fund and discretionary housing payments. The CRF is available in England; in Scotland and Wales, similar local financial support is available through the Scottish Welfare Fund and the Welsh Discretionary Assistance Fund.
The primary objective of the CRF is to “provide a safety net for those on low incomes who encounter a financial shock and to invest in building local financial resilience to enable individuals and communities to better deal with crises in the long term, reducing crisis need”.
Three targets
Local authorities administer the CRF, instructed by the government to focus on three outcomes:
- Support to prevent the occurrence or escalation of individuals’ crises through needs-based assistance, and to address shortfalls in the ability to pay housing costs
- Improving individuals’ financial resilience through services designed to do this
- Investment in activities that connect and enhance local support provision.
Crisis payments are intended to help low-income households deal with a financial shock or prevent them from going into crisis.
They are designed to provide immediate assistance to people in financial crisis regardless of benefit entitlement. Crises likely to justify a payment include:
- A disaster such as a flood or fire
- An accident, health emergency or mental health crisis
- Domestic abuse when leaving
an abusive relationship and needing immediate help, such as when moving into an unfurnished property - The breakdown of an essential item, such as a boiler, medical equipment or white goods
- A short-term gap in regular income, eg because of redundancy or loss of working hours.
The payment may be awarded for food, energy or water bills, clothing, appliances and transport costs.
The applicant does not have to be claiming any welfare benefit. However, the authority must consider any savings or other liquid assets a person has at the time of the crisis.
Councils must spend some funding on support for people on low incomes. This will involve referral pathways so they have access to holistic support
Authorities have to assess a person’s circumstances to identify immediate and underlying needs. They can make referrals to resilience and/or other services.
Housing payments are available only to people who gets housing benefit or a universal credit award including the housing element, and the council accepts they need extra financial assistance towards their housing costs.
Relevant housing costs can include rent in advance, rental deposits, a shortfall between housing support and rent due, and removal costs. Authorities choose how long to provide housing payments for and whether to backdate them.
In some circumstances, a housing payment cannot be made. These include if the rent demanded has risen to pay off arrears, for recovery of a benefit overpayment or if there are benefit sanctions.
Appeals and review
There is no formal right of appeal about a decision on a crisis or housing payment. However, councils are encouraged to arrange an internal review process. This should give failed applicants an opportunity to give reasons why the authority should look at the decision again, and highlight errors in the decision-making process.
Resilience services that councils are being encouraged to provide to their residents include income maximisation, budgeting support and access to affordable credit.
Councils must spend some of their funding on creating more joined-up local support for people on low incomes. This will involve referral pathways so that service users have access to holistic support that addresses all their underlying long-term needs as well as any immediate financial crisis.
The CRF is funded for three years.
