Citizens Advice will lead 11 other Warrington charities running the new Crisis and Resilience Fund. The borough's government allocation is £2,288,251 this year.
Twelve Warrington charities will between them run the borough’s crisis and hardship support, after the council appointed Citizens Advice Warrington to lead the group.
The council announced the appointment on Thursday. Citizens Advice Warrington becomes what the council calls the Lead Alliance Provider for its financial resilience programme, which is paid for out of the government’s Crisis and Resilience Fund.
That fund replaced the Household Support Fund on 1 April 2026. Warrington’s share of it this year is £2,288,251.
Who is in the alliance
The council names twelve organisations in the partnership:
- Citizens Advice Warrington (lead)
- Age UK Mid Mersey
- CARE UK
- Home-Start
- RATI
- St Joseph’s Family Centre
- Warrington Carers Hub
- Warrington Disability Partnership
- Warrington Foodbank
- Speak Up
- Warrington Voluntary Action
- Warrington Youth Zone
The council says the programme is also supported by Warrington Poverty Truth Commissioners.
Citizens Advice Warrington is already the council’s advice provider. The contract award notice on Find a Tender records the council awarding its Universal Information, Advice and Guidance Service on 18 September 2025 to Warrington District Citizens Advice Bureau, Companies House number 04416167, which is the registration number Citizens Advice Warrington publishes as its own. The value is £3,800,000 excluding VAT, the term runs from 1 December 2025 to 30 November 2030 with five optional one-year extensions, and the notice records that one tender was received.
Cllr Sue Emery, cabinet member for poverty, inequality and protection, said in the announcement that “our local charities and community organisations are trusted by residents and understand the needs of the communities they serve”.
What you can actually apply for
The fund is not only the advice programme. The council’s own Crisis and Resilience Fund page sets out four kinds of help, three of which it administers itself:
- Crisis Payments, for a sudden financial shock: lost income or cut hours, an unexpected essential bill, a delay or change to benefits, illness, caring responsibilities or an urgent housing problem
- Housing Payments, for people on qualifying benefits who cannot meet housing costs because of a shortfall in income. These replace the council’s previous discretionary housing payment scheme
- Resilience Services, which is the strand the charity alliance will run: benefit checks, budgeting help, debt advice and help into work or training
- Statutory payments still run by the DWP, including Sure Start maternity grants, funeral payments, cold weather payments and budgeting loans
Applications for crisis and housing payments go through forms linked from that page. The council adds a practical warning that is easy to miss: you have to accept cookies on the form page before clicking through, or the application will not submit.
Where the £2.29m goes
The government’s grant determination for 2026 to 2027, published on 8 May, allocates Warrington £2,288,251 out of £858,004,578 for England. The money is a ringfenced grant paid monthly under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003.
Of Warrington’s allocation, the Department for Work and Pensions guidance expects £199,974 to be spent on housing payments, plus £39,258.77 to administer them, in each of the first two years. The housing figure rises to £217,232 in 2028-29. Everything else is at the council’s discretion, within a tolerance the guidance sets at 20% either way.
The council’s announcement describes the fund as “worth around £800,000 a year for three years”. That is well under the £2,288,251 the determination allocates for this year alone. The announcement does not explain the gap, and nothing we could reach today says which figure covers what, so the safest reading is that the £800,000 describes the alliance’s programme rather than the whole fund. We will correct this if the council says otherwise.
Warrington’s allocation is the smallest of any of its immediate neighbours. The money is weighted towards need rather than population, and on the measure of need we can check, Warrington does sit below the councils around it: 2.7% of working-age residents claiming unemployment-related benefits in August, against 4.3% in Halton, 3.7% in St Helens and 3.6% in Wigan. Those figures are from this month’s jobs release.
What the government requires of the council
The determination sets conditions worth knowing if you are trying to get help. Councils must “publish on their website, and by any other appropriate means, such information as it considers sufficient to enable the general public to understand the Scheme”, including eligibility and how to apply, and must keep a website page dedicated to the fund.
The guidance also requires “a minimum of two application routes for Crisis Payments and Housing Payments, such as an online application, telephone application and face-to-face application, ensuring inclusions to those digitally excluded and with barriers to travel”.
On resilience work, the guidance sets no figure at all. It says only that there is “no specified amount Authorities must spend on Resilience Services” and that councils are “expected to use a significant amount of their total Fund allocation” on it. The fund runs to 31 March 2029.
What it means for you
If money has become a problem, three routes are open now.
- Apply to the council through the Crisis and Resilience Fund page for a crisis payment or a housing payment. Help in another language or format is on 01925 443322.
- Go to Citizens Advice Warrington in person. Its own website lists a drop-in at The Gateway, 89 Sankey Street, WA1 1SR, from 9.30am to 1pm Monday to Friday.
- Check the cheaper things first. Our guide to Warrington council tax bands and charges sets out what each band costs, and what the council is consulting on for housing grants covers repairs and adaptations, which are funded separately.
Sources: Warrington Borough Council announcement, 18 September 2026; Warrington Borough Council, Crisis and Resilience Fund; MHCLG, Crisis and Resilience Fund Grant Determination 2026 to 2027; DWP, Crisis and Resilience Fund guidance, 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2029; Find a Tender award notice 057735-2025.
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