The Four Strands of CRF Explained: How to Deliver Each One

The Crisis and Resilience Fund requires local authorities to deliver support across four distinct but interconnected strands: crisis payments, housing payments, resilience services, and community coordination. Each strand has its own operational requirements, reporting obligations, and success metrics -- but they must work as a connected system if the programme is to achieve its goal of reducing repeat crisis demand.

TL;DR: The CRF has four strands: crisis payments (48-hour SLA), housing-related financial support, longer-term resilience services commissioned through VCS partners, and community coordination connecting agencies and households. Councils must deliver across all four strands and report outcomes quarterly to DWP.

What you'll learn: How to set up, operate, and measure each strand, with practical guidance on staffing, technology, partner commissioning, and common pitfalls.

Who this is for: CRF programme leads, operational managers, commissioning teams, and VCS delivery partners.

Strand 1: Crisis Payments

Crisis payments are the most operationally demanding strand. They require rapid assessment, decision-making, and disbursement -- all within a 48-hour SLA from application to payment.

What Strand 1 Covers

Direct financial support for households facing an immediate crisis. Typical payment reasons include:

• Emergency food costs following benefit delay or sanction
• Utility disconnection or prepayment meter debt
• Essential appliance failure (boiler, cooker, fridge)
• Emergency travel costs for medical appointments or funerals
• Clothing and household essentials following fire, flood, or domestic abuse

Average crisis payment values under the predecessor HSF ranged from £100 to £500 depending on the local authority and crisis type. DWP data from 2024-25 indicated that approximately 2.4 million individual awards were made through the HSF nationally.

How to Deliver Strand 1

Application routes: Provide online forms with document upload (bank statements, utility bills, benefit letters, ID), telephone applications for digitally excluded residents, and referral routes from partner agencies (Citizens Advice, housing providers, jobcentres).

Assessment process: AI-assisted evidence reading can extract income data, benefit status, and arrears amounts from uploaded documents, pre-populating the assessment for officers. This reduces processing time from hours to minutes for straightforward cases. Manual review remains essential for complex or borderline cases.

Decision-making: Establish clear decision frameworks with delegated authority levels. Simple cases (under a threshold amount) can be approved by a single officer; complex cases require a second review. All decisions must be recorded with rationale for the audit trail.

Payment disbursement: Offer multiple payment channels -- bank transfer for applicants with accounts, PayPoint or cash vouchers for those without. The FCA's Financial Lives 2024 survey found that approximately 0.9 million UK adults remain unbanked, making multi-channel disbursement essential.

Referral trigger: Every crisis payment should trigger a referral to Strand 3 resilience services and Strand 4 coordination. This is the mechanism that connects immediate relief to longer-term support.

Common Pitfalls

• Relying solely on online applications excludes vulnerable residents
• Failing to capture MI data at the point of transaction creates reporting backlogs
• Processing payments without triggering resilience referrals misses the programme's core intent

Strand 2: Housing Payments

Housing-related financial support addresses one of the most common drivers of crisis -- the gap between housing costs and household income.

What Strand 2 Covers

• Rent deposit guarantees and bonds
• Benefit shortfall payments (the gap between Local Housing Allowance and actual rent)
• Emergency accommodation costs
• Rent arrears clearance to prevent eviction
• Essential household setup costs for those moving out of temporary accommodation

According to Shelter's 2024 analysis, approximately 354,000 people were recorded as homeless in England, with housing affordability consistently cited as the primary driver. Strand 2 directly addresses the financial barriers that push households into housing crisis.

How to Deliver Strand 2

Evidence requirements: Tenancy agreements, benefit award letters, rent statements, and landlord correspondence. AI document reading can extract key figures (monthly rent, LHA rate, shortfall amount) to speed assessment.

Shortfall calculation: Automate the calculation of housing benefit shortfalls where possible. The gap between LHA rates and market rents has widened significantly since the LHA freeze, with the average shortfall between LHA rates and rents at approximately £30 per week before the April 2024 uplift (Resolution Foundation).

Landlord payments: Where payments are made directly to landlords (e.g., rent deposit guarantees or arrears clearance), establish secure payment processes with verification.

Coordination with housing teams: Strand 2 should connect with the council's housing options team, homelessness prevention duty, and any Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) provision to avoid duplication.

Outcome tracking: Key metrics include tenancy sustainment rates at 6 and 12 months, eviction prevention rates, and successful move-on from temporary accommodation.

Common Pitfalls

• Duplicating existing DHP provision without clear boundaries
• Paying arrears without addressing the underlying shortfall
• Failing to coordinate with housing options teams

Strand 3: Resilience Services

Resilience services are the strand most likely to reduce long-term crisis demand. They address the root causes that bring households back to Strand 1 repeatedly.

What Strand 3 Covers

Commissioned services delivered primarily by VCS organisations, including:

• Energy advice and fuel poverty support
• Budgeting, debt advice, and financial capability training
• Employment readiness and skills programmes
• Mental health and wellbeing support
• Digital inclusion training
• Benefits maximisation and welfare rights advice

National Energy Action estimates that approximately 6.5 million UK households were in fuel poverty in 2024. Energy advice services commissioned under Strand 3 directly target one of the highest-volume crisis triggers.

How to Deliver Strand 3

Commissioning: Identify local VCS organisations with relevant expertise and capacity. Use existing knowledge of local need (from HSF data, Joint Strategic Needs Assessments, and partner intelligence) to prioritise service types. Commission for outcomes, not just outputs -- specify the CRF outcome indicators in service specifications.

Case management: Delivery partners need a structured case management system to track each household's journey from referral through to outcome. This cannot be done on spreadsheets at any meaningful scale. Partners should record:

• Referral source and presenting needs
• Sessions delivered and support provided
• Progress against relevant CRF outcome indicators
• Case closure with outcome summary

Outcome data flow-back: The critical technical requirement is that outcome data from Strand 3 partners flows back to the council for MI reporting. Without a shared platform, this typically involves manual data collection via spreadsheets or email -- a process that is slow, error-prone, and difficult to audit.

Plinth solves this by providing a shared platform where both the council and VCS delivery partners operate. Referrals, case management, and outcome data all flow through one system, with MI reports generated automatically.

Quality assurance: Regular review of partner performance against commissioned outcomes, with contract management processes that support improvement rather than penalise.

Common Pitfalls

• Commissioning services without clear outcome specifications
• Partners recording outcomes in formats incompatible with MI returns
• Insufficient case management infrastructure for partners
• Failing to follow up on referrals that partners do not accept

Strand 4: Community Coordination

Community coordination is the connective tissue of the CRF. Without it, the other three strands operate as separate silos.

What Strand 4 Covers

• A digital referral network connecting the council with VCS organisations, housing providers, health services, and statutory agencies
• Service mapping to understand what support exists locally
• No-wrong-door routing so that any agency receiving a request for help can connect the household to the right service
• Multi-agency case coordination for households with complex needs

NCVO data indicates there are approximately 166,000 voluntary organisations in England. In any given local authority area, dozens or hundreds of these may be relevant to CRF-supported households. Without coordination, residents face a fragmented landscape.

How to Deliver Strand 4

Service directory: Build or adopt a comprehensive, up-to-date directory of local services relevant to CRF households. This should be searchable by need type (not just organisation name) and available to all agencies in the coordination network. Plinth's AI service directory allows residents and professionals to describe what they need in plain language and receive matched results.

Referral pathways: Establish digital referral pathways between agencies. A council officer processing a Strand 1 payment should be able to refer the household to an energy advice service (Strand 3) with a single action, and the receiving organisation should see the referral in their own system.

No-wrong-door policy: Any agency in the network that receives a request for help -- whether or not they can provide it directly -- should be able to route the household to the right service. This requires agreed referral protocols and shared technology.

Data sharing agreements: Multi-agency coordination requires data sharing. Establish clear agreements under UK GDPR that define what data can be shared, with whom, and for what purpose. Consent models should be explained to households at the point of application.

Common Pitfalls

• Building a service directory that is out of date within months
• Referral pathways that exist on paper but not in practice
• Data sharing agreements that are too restrictive for effective coordination
• Excluding smaller VCS organisations from the network

How the Four Strands Connect

The strands are not independent programmes. They form a connected system:

The repeat application rate is the key indicator of whether this connected approach is working. If Strand 3 and 4 interventions are effective, fewer households should return for Strand 1 crisis payments. Under the HSF, repeat rates of 25-35% were common in areas without structured resilience services.

Staffing and Governance

Programme lead: A senior officer accountable for the overall scheme, typically at head of service level.

Strand leads: Operational managers for each strand, with clear responsibility for delivery and data quality.

Decision panel: For complex or high-value cases, a panel including senior officers and (optionally) VCS representatives.

Section 151 oversight: The statutory chief finance officer must sign off quarterly MI returns and has overall accountability for financial propriety.

Partner governance: Regular partnership boards with commissioned VCS organisations to review performance, resolve issues, and share learning.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can councils weight spending towards one strand over others?

Yes, councils have flexibility to allocate spending across strands based on local need. However, DWP guidance requires demonstrable activity in all four strands. A council that spends 95% on Strand 1 crisis payments with no resilience services would not be compliant.

How should councils measure Strand 3 outcomes?

Outcomes are measured through ongoing case management by delivery partners. Partners record progress against the seven CRF outcome indicators as they work with households. Self-reported wellbeing scores, financial capability assessments, and follow-up surveys at 3, 6, and 12 months are common measurement tools.

What if VCS partners lack digital capacity?

This is a genuine challenge in some areas. Options include: providing partners with access to the council's chosen platform (e.g., Plinth), funding digital capacity building as part of the Strand 3 commission, or accepting manual data returns for smaller partners while working towards digital adoption.

How do strands 3 and 4 differ in practice?

Strand 3 is about delivering specific services to households (energy advice, debt counselling, employment support). Strand 4 is about building the infrastructure that connects those services -- referral networks, service directories, multi-agency protocols. Strand 3 is the what; Strand 4 is the how.

Recommended Next Pages

• What Is the Crisis and Resilience Fund? -- The definitive overview of the CRF programme.

• Best Software for Managing CRF Programmes -- Compare platforms for CRF delivery.

• Crisis Fund Management vs Standard Grant Programmes -- Understand the key operational differences.

• How to Coordinate a Network of Local Charities -- Relevant to Strand 4 community coordination.

• CRF Use Case: Plinth for Crisis and Resilience Fund Delivery -- See the full platform in action.

Last updated: February 2026

For more information about delivering the CRF with Plinth, contact our team or schedule a demo.