Background
As part of Gateshead Council's Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF) Delivery Plan for 2026-2027 over £500,000 of funding is being made available to local Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) organisations to fund their work supporting individual and community financial resilience, including a ring-fenced pot of £60,000 to support digital inclusion activities with a focus on financial inclusion.
The Resilience Services strand of CRF sits alongside the Community Coordination strand which seeks to bolster 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 networks and collaboration between community organisations within local areas, that in turn will 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 from crisis support into resilience services. Through this effective join-up of local support services, those seeking crisis support will be appropriately referred to services that can help build their individual financial resilience.
Further support to organisations to develop and deliver resilience services
Alongside grants awarded through this funding programme, Gateshead Council will invest in several tools, training and further support to develop the capacity, skills and knowledge of local community-based organisations. This provides opportunities to support the development of your resilience services and more effective coordination and collaboration between organisations. These include:
- The further development of the CRF application portal, triage, warm referral and outcomes tracking system to enable the consistent capture and management of CRF support, Management Information (MI) and outcome data. The system will also enable case information and data sharing across key partners, so residents aren't asked to repeat their story when referred into different support.
- A local Money Advice Referral Tool (similar to Money Advice Referral Tool - Resolve Poverty) and a local 'Worrying About Money' leaflet to identify the most appropriate financial resilience and wider community-based support services according to different circumstances (see Independent Food Aid Network - 'Worrying about money?' resources). These will used by residents directly and by organisations and council services supporting residents seeking support and advice.
- Provision of fully funded Advice First Aid training for staff and volunteers to build capability and quality of informal advice, information and guidance and effective warm referrals into accredited AIG partners or council services.
The Advice First Aid training enables people in non-advice roles to gain the skills to become an advice first aider and connect people in local communities with appropriate advice and the essential support services necessary to improve their situations. For more information, Citizens Advice Somerset - Advice First Aid.
- An annual programme of events, meetings, communications and training for partner organisations at a borough-wide and locality (x4) level to strengthen understanding, knowledge and shared learning across organisations, to develop skills and capacity and build trusted relationships between partners.
- Training on poverty awareness, person-centred and trauma-informed approaches and other topics required or identified by partners.
- A community-based Debt Advisor employed by Citizens Advice Gateshead but able to be deployed across community locations across Gateshead to provide specialist debt advice in a range of local settings.
- Use of, and training on, the Lightning Reach tool so you can support residents with benefits maximisation and seeking additional financial support. Lightning Reach is an easy-to-use portal where in 10 minutes residents can quickly create a personal profile where it then matches them to eligible and/or unclaimed benefits, charitable grants and other support required related to their specific circumstances. Already being used by over 500 Gateshead residents with an average of £1,400 additional income secured per household, we want to roll this tool out across the borough to support more residents to maximise their household income.
Through these tools and activities, alongside the grant funding, we wish to create and develop a strong partnership of organisations committed to working together to improve individual and community resilience and tackle poverty together across Gateshead. The tools and training will also be made accessible to organisations that don't applying or aren't successful in securing CRF grant funding.
We don't expect all organisations applying for this funding to already be providing financial resilience services, but we do expect a commitment to develop those services and support over time. This might be through engaging in the training, the tools provided, and attending partner network events and activities outlined above. You can also include any specific costs related to developing the financial resilience services you wish to provide within your application.
CRF resilience services grant programme guidance
This section provides guidance information for organisations wishing to apply for this funding.
What are resilience services?
'Resilience services' are services and support that contribute towards improving the financial resilience of individuals. Financial resilience refers to the ability of individuals to withstand and recover from financial shocks (such as sudden income loss or unexpected expenses).
The purpose of building financial resilience is to enable individuals to better manage future financial shocks and reduce the need for crisis support. A number of factors can contribute to, or impact, financial resilience. These can include:
- income, savings and debt
- housing insecurity
- physical disability, learning disability, mental health condition or wellbeing
- caring responsibilities
- financial literacy
- digital exclusion
- community support and social networks
- access to income smoothing tools, such as affordable credit and insurance
Activities that take account of and directly respond to these resilience factors can be funded as long as those activities also deliver against at least one of the 7 key resilience services outcomes listed below.
Examples of 'resilience services' activities
The CRF Guidance for Local Authorities states that we should invest in services that can deliver:
- budget maximisation, such as by funding advice services (including but not limited to debt, energy and housing)
- income maximisation, such as through benefit checks and application support, employment and training advice and employability support, access to alternative support grants, and/or activities that reduce household costs and expenditure
- income smoothing, such as enabling access to affordable credit, supporting saving behaviours or encouraging appropriate insurance take-up
- financial capability, such as money management and budgeting advice and support, supporting future planning, and financial education activities
Principles
Organisations and activities funded by the project must be able to demonstrate they are working to provide support in line with the following principles and approaches:
- person-centred to ensure that people's preferences, needs and values stay central to professional decisions, providing support that is respectful to them
- needs-based to recognise the varied circumstances that individuals may experience, seeking to meet the underlying needs, not just the crisis symptoms
- holistic to provide integrated support that helps the individual and their households, across a wide range of services
- encompass a no wrong door approach to connect individuals to the right service and support through warm referrals, regardless of their initial point of contact
- trauma informed: services should adopt a trauma informed approach when working with people and families in crisis, considering the 6 principles of trauma-informed practice GOV.UK - Working definition of trauma-informed practice
Key criteria - resilience services outcomes
The services, activities or project that you are seeking funding for must support 1 of the 7 resilience services outcomes and you will need to evidence the impact you are having through capturing monitoring and evaluation data.
- reduced experiences of material deprivation
- reduced need for emergency food parcels
- increased access to appropriate and quality advice services
- increased savings
- reduction in debt, especially priority debt
- maximisation of individuals' incomes
- decreased need for Crisis Payments and Housing Payments
The 7 resilience services outcomes are the key criteria for this funding. In the grant application form you will be asked which of these outcomes the activities you provide will deliver on, how you will deliver against them, and how you will capture evidence to report on.
You are not expected to be able to deliver against them all. Focusing on 1 to 2 is fine and will make your reporting much easier. There is also a lot of crossover between them, with some easier to quantify than others. Further information is below.
What we can fund
For CRF, there are fewer restrictions (than under Household Support Fund) on what you can spend the money on, so your application budget can include a contribution to salary costs, staff time to attend training and training costs, contributions to overheads, activity costs, volunteer costs, contribution towards the purchase of food for community food aid projects (for example community meals, pantries, shops, social supermarkets) as long as you can align the spend to the outcome(s) you are delivering on.
DWP fully expect that the resilience work will sit alongside the other work and support that you offer, rather than needing to fund a distinct project or activity in isolation to the rest of your work.
What we can't fund
There is very little guidance on exempt spend and a high level of flexibility: "Local authorities have the flexibility to design schemes that best meets the needs of their local communities, provided these initiatives meet the resilience outcomes set out earlier."
However, there is some clear guidance that we shouldn't fund:
- Purchasing of food only for emergency or crisis food provision - we and the organisations we provide grant funding to are encouraged to signpost people to apply for crisis support payments instead (cash first approach) and signpost to low-cost community food provision, for example pantries, social supermarkets, food clubs
- Providing food or fuel vouchers - we are encouraged to signpost people to apply for crisis support payments instead (cash first approach) and signpost to community food provision (for example, pantries and social supermarkets) to reduce household costs
- Activity that doesn't support the resilience services outcomes
- Activity that is receiving funding from elsewhere (no double funding), but we can fund expansion of projects or activities in receipt of other funding
- Capital projects - this is revenue or project funding, not funding for buildings or building work
Some ideas for potential activities for applications
This is not an exhaustive list, just some initial suggestions to get you thinking.
- Extend opening hours or provision (some evenings and weekends) to support low-income working families unable to access working day or working hours provision.
- Community-based outreach: Proactive work to reach more and new residents into your organisation and services, especially from more vulnerable groups.
- Working with particular groups to co-design local support that meets their specific needs - for example, families with children, in-work poverty households, disabled people, asylum seekers and refugees, lone parents - and then deliver it. Or utilising research and evidence of need to develop services and support that have been requested by residents.
- Energy Champions projects: Training staff and volunteers to help residents understand bills, switch tariffs, access energy grants, improve home energy efficiency, and reduce fuel poverty. (Training available through (NEA) National Energy Action)
- Working in partnership with other local organisations - neighbourhood clusters. Don't duplicate, complement each other by offering different types of support on different days and times. For example, local organisations working together to provide advice sessions, community café, peer support, signposting and warm referrals, creating visible local support networks and reducing isolation.
- Working in partnership to bring specialist services into your spaces and to your people (according to their needs, identified by working with them). For example, energy advice, NE First Credit Union, Citizens Advice, Age UK, council housing teams and other teams (for example Council Tax and private rented team), and specialist debt advice.
- Running financial confidence sessions or 6-8-week programmes (managing budgets, cooking on a budget, reducing energy costs, avoiding scams and high-cost credit, building savings for emergencies). Could include practical information kits and peer support.
- Expanding community food projects to offer financial resilience support - finance health checks, benefits maximisation through Lightning Reach, energy advice, assisted self-help using national websites and hotlines and community saving clubs.
Monitoring information
One of the key things for organisations to consider when applying for this funding is whether you will be able to collect the required monitoring information and evidence to support the delivery of the selected resilience services outcomes as set out below.
Crisis and Resilience Fund grantees will need to record and provide data on a 6-monthly basis (following the initial 1-month period) on:
- Access routes (where have the people you have supported come from)
- numbers of people referred from Crisis or Housing Payments applications (this will not be applicable for most organisations)
- self-referred
- proactive route (you've reached out to them)
- referred from third party
- other
- Individuals accessing services by demographics (who are the people you have supported)
- children, pensioners, disabled people, others
- employed or unemployed
- benefits recipients or non-benefit recipients
DWP (the funder) is particularly keen to know how many children, pensioners and disabled people are supported. Everyone else falls under 'other'. Several boxes can be ticked for each individual or household supported.
For example, a family with 1 adult and 2 children, 1 of which is disabled, would record 1 in other (for the adult), 2 in children and 1 in disabled people (for the disabled child).
You will also need to ask and record whether people you have supported are employed (including self-employed) or unemployed, on benefits on not. This detail can be provided anonymously, but you must keep a record of how you asked for it and collated it for audit purposes.
3. Number of individuals accessing delivery aligned to resilience outcomes
This one is the trickiest and relates to the number of people you support against each of the seven resilience outcomes. As mentioned above, we advise picking 1 or 2 of the resilience outcomes that best fit the activity you are applying for, as it will be much easier for you to allocate the number of people you have supported in a reporting period across a smaller number of outcomes.
Outcomes evidence
Alongside the monitoring data set out above, DWP requires local authorities and the organisations they fund to provide evidence that demonstrates progress in each of the resilience outcomes delivered against. This is quantitative or qualitative data that brings to life the activities you have delivered, and the impact they had on people's financial resilience.
We have an explanation of the 7 resilience outcomes, what they mean, examples of activities and what you might collect in terms of evidence. This is to help you consider the activities you might seek funding for, which 1 or 2 outcomes your activity best aligns with, and to start to think about what you will collect to provide evidence on the impact of that delivery of the outcomes. In the CRF application form you will be asked what outcomes you will focus on, what you will deliver to achieve them, and how you will collect and provide evidence to demonstrate your progress and impact.
How the grant funding programme will work from September 2026 to the end of March 2029
- The grants awarded will be between £500-£10,000 per year and dependent on the scale of the organisation, the number of people supported, and the type and complexity of the support offered.
- For the 2026 to 2027 financial year, there are only 7 months left if activity starts in September.
- Initial grant applications and the grant agreements will cover September 2026 to April 2028 (remaining 7 months of 2026 to 2027 and 12 months 2027 to 2028).
- 5% will be added to the grant 'applied for' amount as a contribution towards admin costs to produce monitoring information (you do not need to include this in your grant application).
- Grants will be paid up front for the initial 7 months. Following that, grants will be paid up front on a 6-monthly instalment basis.
- After the initial 7-month period, further instalments are dependent on receipt of monitoring information from the previous period, engagement in training and network and partnership activities, adequate performance and adequate spend.
- Gateshead Council have the option to launch further grant application programmes or offer to extend or increase grant agreements at any time if more CRF funds become available for resilience services (dependent on demand for crisis payments).
- Gateshead Council have the option to extend or increase grant agreements for the final year (April 2028 to March 2029) if performance, engagement, spend or monitoring information meets or betters the required standard. It also has the option to launch further grant application programmes if required.
Detail on the outline grant tiers
The annual grant amounts for the first 19-month grant period, a description of the type and scale of organisations and activities and the expectations at each grant tier level are set out in the table in Appendix 2. Please refer to this before deciding what amount of funding to apply for.
The grant tiers have been based on the amounts previously awarded via the Household Support Fund. We have taken the approach to award a larger number of smaller grants so that the benefit of this funding opportunity can be accessible for organisations of all sizes. This is so we can ensure that community-based early-stage advice and support can be delivered across a range of organisations and locations across Gateshead, improving the access to this type of support for all residents.
Grant funding programme timeline for remainder of 2026 to 2027 financial year
- Friday 17 July - Grant application form and guidance published and grant applications open - online form using Microsoft Forms
- Monday 17 August (5pm) - Grant application deadline
- Thursday 20 August - Grant assessment and awards panel
- 24 and 25 August - Decisions communication to applying organisations followed by provision of grant agreements for signing
- 1 September - CRF funded activity to commence by or soon after 1 September
- 1 to 30 September - First month of delivery and opportunity to collect 1 month's monitoring information
- Early October - Deadline for first month's monitoring information
- 1 October to 31 March - 6 months of delivery
- Early April 2027 - Deadline for October 2026 to March 2027 monitoring information and outcomes evidence.
- 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2028 - Delivery of next 12 months' CRF resilience services activity (6-month monitoring and reporting due following September 2027 and March 2028)
CRF Resilience outcomes, what they mean and how you might gather evidence to report on
This isn't an exhaustive list. It provides some more information on what the outcomes mean and what evidence you might collect to show the outputs that support how you are delivering the outcomes.
Resilience service outcome: Reduced experiences of material deprivation.
What this means: Anything that tackles the underlying conditions that prevent households from affording essentials such as heating, adequate clothing, basic household goods and food. This could be achieved by increasing income or reducing costs.
Examples: Support to access social tariffs or cheaper energy tariffs, helping people manage money or budgets, and improving access to lower-cost food, household goods and clothing.
What evidence you might collect: Data showing the number of households that can better afford essential items as a result of the support provided.
Resilience service outcome: Reduced need for emergency food parcels.
What this means: Reducing reliance on emergency food provision by offering alternatives and providing advice and support to maximise income and reduce household costs.
Examples: Supporting access to lower-cost food, increasing household income through benefits maximisation, or reducing household expenditure to lessen the need for emergency food parcels.
What evidence you might collect: Information collected before and after support on food insecurity, use of food banks, and repeat use of food banks.
Resilience service outcome: Increased access to appropriate and quality advice services.
What this means: Providing access to high-quality, free advice that improves understanding of individuals' rights and entitlements, encourages action, and helps resolve issues.
Examples: Advice on welfare benefits, housing and wider support; using Advice First Aid training to provide early support and warm referrals into formal advice services; using the Gateshead Money Advice Referral Tool, the Worrying About Money leaflet, and Lightning Reach to identify support and benefits.
What evidence you might collect: The number of advice sessions delivered, the number of positive outcomes achieved, the number of people claiming new benefits or increasing their income as a result of advice, and the total or average additional income gained.
Resilience service outcome: Increased savings.
What this means: Encouraging individuals to build financial buffers that prevent unexpected costs or income reductions from becoming crises.
Examples: Warm referrals to NE First Credit Union to open savings accounts, community savings clubs, and outreach sessions delivered in partnership with NE First.
What evidence you might collect: The number of people with existing savings, the median savings amount, and increases in savings levels following support.
Resilience service outcome: Reduction in debt, especially priority debt.
What this means: Reducing priority debts such as rent, Council Tax and utility arrears, which are most likely to lead to financial crisis, legal action, poor health and homelessness. Debt advice must only be provided by appropriately authorised and FCA-regulated staff where required. Non-specialists can provide advice to help people avoid problem debt or high-cost credit and improve financial management.
Examples: Supporting people to manage or reduce priority debts and avoid problem debt. FCA-regulated debt advice should only be delivered by accredited staff.
What evidence you might collect: The total value of priority debt, the number of households with priority debt, average arrears per household, amounts of debt reduced, managed or written off, and the number of people receiving debt advice.
Resilience service outcome: Maximisation of individuals' incomes.
What this means: Supporting individuals to increase household income through both raising income and reducing expenditure.
Examples: Helping people identify and claim financial support through services such as Lightning Reach; accessing social tariffs for water and broadband; switching energy providers; using insurance comparison sites; developing employment and in-work progression skills; and improving access to lower-cost food.
What evidence you might collect: The number of households making new benefit claims, the number whose income increased, the value of income increases, the number whose expenditure decreased, and the value of expenditure reductions.
Resilience service outcome: Decreased need for Crisis Payments and Housing Payments.
What this means: Building financial resilience and creating effective pathways between crisis support and resilience services to reduce future reliance on crisis assistance.
Examples: Using the Gateshead Money Advice Referral Tool, the Worrying About Money leaflet, and Lightning Reach to identify support and benefits, alongside activities that encourage savings and improve preparedness for future financial shocks.
What evidence you might collect: Reductions in the number of applications for Crisis Payments and Housing Payments, reductions in repeat applications (to be collected by Gateshead Council), and evidence of referrals made using the Gateshead Money Advice Referral Tool and the Worrying About Money leaflet.
Digital inclusion for financial resilience funding
Rather than launching an open grant programme for the digital inclusion or financial resilience £60,000 pot of money, we plan to hold an initial event in September 2026 for organisations already delivering, those who have previously delivered, or are planning on or interested in delivering digital inclusion or financial inclusion projects or work.
The aim of this session will be to:
- map existing provision and share good practice and what works
- identify gaps, issues and opportunities
- identify the support, training and development needs of organisations wishing to offer digital for financial resilience activities
We will work with the organisations in attendance to co-design how the initial £60,000 to support digital inclusion for financial resilience funding should be allocated and spent. After the first period, there is also £60,000 plus an annual uplift in the outline budget for years 2 and 3 of the CRF Delivery Plan. It may be decided that for the initial period investing in training, or the development of resources that many of organisations can use might be a better option alongside or instead of an open grants programme. Once the approach has been co-designed, it will be widely communicated to potential partner organisations.
Final relevant information from DWP guidance to local authorities
The following information from the DWP guidance relates to local authorities working with or awarding funding to voluntary, community, and faith-sector organisations. We are sharing here for information:
Due diligence
Authorities wishing to work with voluntary, community, and faith-sector organisations to deliver the fund must carry out suitable due diligence checks to ensure they are viable and able to deliver the support. So, for example, ensuring all voluntary, community, and faith-sector organisations are registered and taking extra caution if they are new organisations.
Recovering overpayments from individuals or voluntary, community, and faith-sector organisations
An authority can recover a CRF award where there has been:
- a misrepresentation or failure to disclose a material fact or change of circumstances by the claimant (either fraudulently or otherwise)
- an error made when the application was determined
Unused funding returned from voluntary and community sector organisations
Where a voluntary and community sector organisation returns unused funding before the end of the fund period, the authority is free to spend that funding in any eligible category for the duration of the fund period.
Where a voluntary, community, and faith-sector organisation returns unused funding after the fund period has ended, the authority can reissue any returned funding within a reasonable timeframe from the point the authority becomes aware of the unused funds, but only under the same category that the spend was originally reported against. Authorities can distribute this funding themselves and do not have to go back through the original voluntary, community, and faith-sector organisations.
Contact and questions
If you have any further question relating to this guidance document or the CRF grant funding application form, please email [email protected]
