North Lincolnshire – VCFSE Alliance – Help us shape the local Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF).

Dear Colleagues,

We are getting in touch to share an opportunity for voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations and groups in North Lincolnshire .

The Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF) has been confirmed for local authorities in England. North Lincolnshire Council will receive an allocation and is designing its local approach. This is a chance to shape how the funding is used locally and how delivery partners may be involved

The Crisis and Resilience Fund will be available to local authorities from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2029. The Fund is focused on three core outcomes:

• Outcome 1: Provision of effective crisis support. Delivering effective crisis support is intended to prevent the occurrence or escalation of individuals’ crises. By offering timely, needs-based assistance to those with low incomes facing financial shocks, authorities can reduce the risk of crisis. This includes the provision of financial support towards housing needs, to those who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs.
• Outcome 2: Improving individuals’ financial resilience. By strengthening financial resilience among individuals, authorities empower citizens to better manage financial shocks and mitigate the occurrence, recurrence, and escalation of crises.
• Outcome 3: Bolstering the local-level support landscape. A joined-up, visible local support network is key to the CRF’s approach to build financial resilience. This includes strengthening resilience networks within local communities, that in turn boost the financial resilience of individuals within these communities. This coordination enables a suitable range of Resilience Services to exist within a local area and ensures there are clear referral pathways between them and crisis support. Through this effective join-up of local support services, authorities can expect those seeking crisis support to be appropriately referred to services that build their individual financial resilience.

The VCFSE Alliance has been invited to work with North Lincolnshire Council to co-design potential activities and interventions for the Fund.

This is an opportunity for organisations and community groups of all sizes to put forward ideas to the Council about how they could contribute to delivery in North Lincolnshire, particularly through resilience services (Outcome 2) and/or community coordination and organising (Outcome 3).

Resilience Services (outcome 2) are the services, programmes and activities that support building financial resilience for individuals and local communities. The Fund can be used to implement new services where there are identified gaps in provision or invest in existing services to expand provision. There is no prescriptive list which provides a comprehensive definition of Resilience Services; however, an outcomes-based approach means that funding decisions will be guided by the impact services have on improving financial resilience. It is expected that the CRF-funded Resilience Services positively impact one or more of the following CRF outcomes:

• Reduced experiences of material deprivation: services that have led to, or will lead to, individuals avoiding experiences of material deprivation. Material deprivation is defined as the lack of items deemed to be necessary for a minimum acceptable standard of living and captures inability to afford essentials (heating, adequate clothing, basic household goods and food). This could include a wide range of services that result in reduced experiences of material deprivation. This may include, but is not limited to, being able to pay bills without having to cut back on essentials, having three meals a day and fresh fruit or vegetables every day, having a home that is adequately warm in winter and having reliable access to internet at home.
• Reduced need for emergency food parcels: services that result in individuals having greater food security. An inability to afford adequate food is a subset of material deprivation and so may include similar activities to those for reduced experiences of material deprivation but may also include more targeted food-specific services, such as community supermarkets.
• Increased access to appropriate and quality advice services: Services that facilitate access to high quality, free-at-the-point-of-use advice provision. This could include, but is not limited to, advice on areas such as debt, welfare, housing, energy or insulation.
• Increased savings: services that result in individuals having increased levels of savings to prevent small shocks becoming crises. This could include services such as saving clubs.
• Reduction in priority debt: services that support debt reduction.
• Maximisation of individuals’ incomes: services to support individuals to increase their household income through a combination of raising income and reducing expenditure. This could include helping individuals identify and claim financial support they are entitled to, identifying savings and building skills to help with employment and in-work progression.
• Decreased need for Crisis Payments and Housing Payments: Services that reduce crisis need over time by building the financial resilience of individuals and enabling effective pathways between crisis support and Resilience Services.

Community Coordination (outcome 3) could include, but is not limited to:

• Investing in convening and coordinating capacity— partnerships that map and maintain a live directory of statutory, voluntary and community services and make this accessible to frontline staff and residents. This could involve the hiring of staff in enabling roles to facilitate this partnership working.
• Coordinating with aligned programmes and initiatives – to ensure that CRF complements, supplements and or expands on existing provisions and that duplication is mitigated. This could include the matching or pooling of funds to achieve shared outcomes.
• Partnerships with other organisations to deliver coordinated support, develop local strategies to address poverty or negotiate favourable terms for people in low incomes (negotiation of social tariffs, discounted bills, debt cancellations or accessing energy-saving grants).
• Outreach, producing and disseminating physical and digital materials – that includes information of different local services available to individuals, how to apply and where to access services. This could be done through development of Authorities’ websites or community locations such as schools, GPs and libraries.
• Digital tools and systems that enable mapping activities, coordinated working, supported referrals and feedback loops across a range of different services.
• Service design and co-production with residents and local community groups to improve outcomes and increase efficiencies for both those delivering CRF and those in receipt of its support.
• Co-location of services – different services or professional groups being situated in the same physical space or building to provide more integrated, holistic and accessible support to individuals. Co-location can occur in areas that are commonly used by communities to enable access for a wide range of groups. This could involve situating advice services in locations such as Authority services, hubs, leisure centres, Family Hubs, libraries and GP surgeries, amongst others.
• Capability building – shared protocols, training and data sharing so partners can identify needs early and direct people to appropriate timely support.

The full guidance can be viewed on the Government website.

To make this as accessible as possible, we have set up a short Google Form for organisations and groups to submit ideas. Responses will be shared directly with North Lincolnshire Council to help identify potential partners for the Fund.

• Please submit one idea per form (you can submit multiple forms if you have more than one idea).
• You do not need to provide a fully developed proposal – just enough information for your idea to be considered at this stage.

Timescales are tight. The form will be open until 5pm on Wednesday 11 February, with responses shared with North Lincolnshire Council on Thursday 12 February.

We will also be holding a peer support session at 4pm on Thursday 5 February via Microsoft Teams, for anyone who would like to talk through ideas, ask questions, or think things through with others.

Please forward this information and invitation to anyone who may be interested in the fund.

Best wishes

Kerrie

Kerrie Prowting

VCFSE Alliance Coordinator

01724 845155   Ext: 215