Crisis and Resilience Fund
Deliver the Crisis and
Resilience Fund.
With confidence.
The CRF replaces the Household Support Fund with a £1bn/year, 3-year settlement from April 2026. Plinth gives your council everything it needs to design, deliver, and report across all four strands.
Book a demoStrand 1
Crisis Payments
Strand 2
Housing Payments
Strand 3
Resilience Services
Strand 4
Community Coordination
One platform. All four strands. Full MI reporting.
Trusted by councils and VCS partners
The challenge ahead.
Councils must design their CRF schemes by July 2026, with demanding operational requirements from day one.
48-hour processing SLA
Crisis payments must be processed within 48 hours of application. Manual processes cannot keep up.
Quarterly MI returns to DWP
Detailed management information across all four strands, signed off by your Section 151 Officer.
Outcomes tracking across 7 indicators
Evidence your impact against the CRF outcomes framework through ongoing case management and AI case recording.
Multi-agency referral network
Coordinate across VCS partners, housing providers, and statutory services. No wrong door.
Repeat application monitoring
Track and reduce repeat crisis applications — the key indicator of whether resilience services are working.
Multi-channel payment disbursement
Bank transfers, PayPoint vouchers, cash payments. Different households need different channels.
From application to payment or referral.
See how a crisis payment is processed end-to-end — from application through to disbursement and resilience referral.
Crisis Payment Application
See how a crisis payment moves from application to disbursement with automatic eligibility checks and resilience referrals.
Application submitted
Applicants submit online in minutes — uploading supporting documents like bank statements, utility bills, and benefit letters. The form works in any language and can be spoken rather than typed.
AI reads uploaded evidence
Applicants upload bank statements, utility bills, benefit letters, and ID. AI reads through them — extracting income, arrears, benefit status — so officers get a pre-populated assessment instead of reading every document manually.
Needs flagging
Repeat applicants, households with children, and fuel poverty indicators are automatically flagged for resilience referral.
Flexible disbursement
Bank transfer, cash voucher, retail voucher or physical item — choose the right crisis payment for each household.
Automatic resilience referral
Every crisis payment triggers a referral to relevant resilience services. Delivery partners record progress through ongoing case management.
Track what matters.
Monitor progress against the 7 CRF outcomes. AI generates narrative summaries from your live data.
18.4%
Repeat rate
3,298
Households
1,847
Referrals
Progress Against CRF Outcomes
Reduced material deprivation
Reduced reliance on food banks
Increased household savings
Improved housing stability
Reduced repeat crisis applications
Increased employment readiness
Improved wellbeing scores
Outcomes from ongoing case management
As delivery partners work with households — energy advice sessions, budgeting support, housing help — their case notes and session records feed outcome data back to the council across all 7 CRF indicators.
AI-generated narratives
Not just numbers — AI produces written summaries explaining what's working, what isn't, and what to do about it.
Repeat application tracking
The key metric for CRF success. Monitor whether resilience services are reducing the need for repeat crisis support.
MI returns. Automated.
Generate your quarterly DWP MI return from live data across all four strands. No more spreadsheet wrangling.
4,127
Total payments
this quarter
2,841
Strand 1 (Crisis)
68.9% of total
892
Strand 2 (Housing)
21.6% of total
394
Strand 3 (Resilience)
9.5% of total
6.2 hrs
Avg. processing time
vs 48hr SLA
3,298
Unique households
across all strands
18.4%
Repeat application rate
down from 31.2%
1,847
Referrals generated
to resilience services
Auto-generated from live data
Payment volumes, demographics, referral counts, and outcome indicators — compiled automatically from your operational data.
Section 151 sign-off workflow
Built-in approval workflow for your Section 151 Officer. Audit trail included.
Cross-strand aggregation
Data from crisis payments, housing awards, resilience services, and referrals — all in one report.
Forms in any language.
Tap a button and the entire application form translates instantly. No one is excluded because of a language barrier.
Crisis Support Application
Bank statements, utility bills, benefit letters
Talk to this form — speak your answers instead of typing
Instant translation
Application forms translate into any language at the tap of a button — Arabic, Polish, Bengali, Somali, Urdu, and hundreds more.
Reach every household
CRF guidance requires councils to have accessible application routes. Language should never be a barrier to crisis support.
Talk to the form
Applicants can speak their answers instead of typing. For people who struggle with written forms — low literacy, disabilities, or just finding it easier to explain out loud.
Responses processed in English
Applicants write or speak in their own language. AI translates responses back to English for officers — no interpreter needed for written applications.
A single platform for every delivery partner.
The biggest pain point for LAs delivering CRF is getting commissioned partners to report back — consistently, in the same format, and on time. Chasing spreadsheets from a dozen VCS organisations is no way to run a scheme.
Plinth gives you a better answer: make it a condition of commissioning that all delivery partners use the same platform. Every partner gets their own case management workspace. Every outcome they record flows back to your MI automatically — live, not quarterly.
How it works
Council commissions partners — and mandates Plinth as the delivery platform
Referrals flow digitally from council to partner the moment they're created
Partners deliver services and log case notes — in real time, in a consistent format
Outcomes appear in the council's MI dashboard live — ready for the DWP return
Built for your organisation.
Whether you're a unitary authority delivering all four strands or a VCS partner delivering resilience services.
Unitary authorities
Metropolitan boroughs
London boroughs
County councils
Community foundations
Housing associations
Citizens Advice
VCS organisations
Secure, compliant, accessible.
GDPR Compliant
Full GDPR compliance with data processing agreements. All data hosted in the UK.
AI Processed in the EU
All AI processing — document reading, case note generation, narrative summaries — happens entirely within the EU. Your data never leaves European infrastructure.
Section 151 Workflows
Built-in sign-off workflows for your Section 151 Officer with full audit trails.
Any Language
Application forms can be translated into any language at the tap of a button. No one is excluded because of a language barrier.
All four strands. One platform.
Plinth covers every strand of the CRF — from crisis payments through to community coordination.
Strand 1
Crisis Payments
Process crisis applications within the 48-hour SLA. Applicants upload bank statements, utility bills, and benefit letters — AI reads them and pre-populates the assessment. Payment orchestration via bank transfer, PayPoint, or cash voucher.
- 48-hour SLA tracking
- AI reads uploaded documents (bills, statements, letters)
- Multi-channel payment disbursement
- Automatic MI data capture
Strand 2
Housing Payments
Manage housing benefit shortfall payments, rent deposits, and emergency accommodation costs. AI reads uploaded tenancy agreements and benefit letters to calculate shortfalls.
- AI reads tenancy and benefit documents
- Shortfall calculation
- Award management
- Landlord payment processing
Strand 3
Resilience Services
Track outcomes for commissioned resilience services against the 7 CRF outcome indicators. Delivery partners record progress through ongoing case management — outcomes flow back to the council automatically.
- 7 CRF outcome indicators
- AI case notes from partner sessions
- Outcomes reported back to council automatically
- AI narrative summaries across case data
Strand 4
Community Coordination
Digital referral network connecting councils, VCS organisations, and statutory services. No-wrong-door approach ensures every household gets the right support.
- Digital referral network
- Service mapping
- No-wrong-door routing
- Multi-agency case coordination
Ready for the CRF?
Book a 30-minute demo and we'll show you how Plinth can help your council deliver the Crisis and Resilience Fund.
Book a demo