The Government has allocated £11.276m over the next three years to Knowsley Council through its new Crisis and Resilience Fund to help communities in need.
Around £3.7m will be available each year and the programme comprises of four strands:-
- Crisis Payment: Providing support to those in crisis.
- Housing Payment: Providing financial support towards housing needs, to those who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs.
- Resilience Services: Funding for services delivered by Authorities or external providers to improve financial resilience.
- Community Coordination: Investment in activities that connect and enhance the local support landscape.
As well as Government support, the Council has also invested significantly through its own Knowsley Better Together Hardship Fund to ensure that residents get the right help and support at the right time.
In addition to the new Crisis and Resilience Fund, the Council is also investing a further £0.534m from Hardship reserves to fund the development of a sustainable food offer in the borough, to continue the Holiday Activity and Food programme in half terms and to provide £0.100m match funding to enable the Council’s Social Care Teams to provide direct support to the most vulnerable residents.
The sustainable food allocation will include supporting investment in partner organisations to enable them to vary their offer and supporting the development of a Knowsley Food Partnership with our community and voluntary partners.
The Government’s Household Support Fund had previously funded the provision of food vouchers for children who receive free school meals when schools are not in session. The ongoing continuation of this provision is not supported by the Government, meaning this provision will cease following the Easter break in 2026.
In the absence of Government funding, the Council has agreed to fund the food vouchers for the May half-term holidays. In addition, the Council will continue to supplement the Holiday Activity and Food Programme from its Hardship Reserves ensuring that the Government funded programme also continues to be provided in half terms.
The Crisis and Resilience Fund marks a shift from reacting to crises to preventing them and aims to build and bolster the local support landscape. For 2026/2027, funding will be allocated as follows:-
- £0.760m for crisis payments (20% of the programme)
- £0.390m for discretionary housing payments
- £2.298m for resilience services (50% of the funding) which will include funding to community food partners, debt and welfare advice, support to ‘at risk’ residents identified through Adult and Children’s Social Care Services, Council Tax Reduction Scheme, fuel and energy support and educations and skills support.
Cllr Jayne Lonergan, Cabinet Member for Resources, said “We remain committed to ensuring our residents have access to the right support at the right time and have allocated our funding where it is needed the most.
“The range of community groups and networks in Knowsley are providing invaluable support to our residents – they know our communities the best and it’s important that they receive funding to ensure it is aligned to their needs, bolstered with our own targeted hardship support too.”