By Emma Lindley, HQN associate

  1. Crisis and Resilience Fund

In June 2025, the government proposed merging Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) and the Household Support Fund (HSF) into a single Crisis and Resilience Fund, launching in April 2026.

Key changes:

  • One flexible local grant for housing, food, fuel and emergencies
  • Multi-year funding to support long-term planning
  • Local delivery with stronger outcome tracking and integration into wider place-based approaches.

Implications:

  • Two-tier and reorganised areas must clarify who administers the fund
  • Risk of housing support being diluted without clear guidance or ringfencing
  • Opportunity to embed housing into broader local safety net models — but requires proactive planning.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-2025-document/spending-review-2025-html search for Crisis and Resilience Fund

  1. Local Government Outcomes Framework – what you’ll be measured on

The Local Government Outcomes Framework (LGOF) outlines a set of national priorities and draft metrics that councils will be expected to report against from 2026. These outcomes reflect cross-cutting goals across housing, health, social care, and community wellbeing.

Key priority outcomes (housing-relevant)

Homelessness and rough sleeping
Councils will be assessed on their ability to prevent and reduce homelessness and rough sleeping. Metrics include the number of households in temporary accommodation, use of B&Bs, prevention duty success rates, and rough sleeping counts.

Housing
This outcome focuses on ensuring access to decent, safe, secure and affordable homes. Measures include housing quality (eg, Decent Homes Standard), housing supply, affordability ratios, energy efficiency (EPC ratings) and planning performance.

Multiple disadvantage
Targets improvements for adults facing overlapping challenges such as homelessness, substance misuse and domestic abuse. Metrics track treatment engagement, housing outcomes and unmet needs in supported accommodation.

Neighbourhoods
Emphasises community safety, trust and satisfaction with local areas. Relevant indicators include perceptions of safety, influence over local decisions and access to green spaces and community facilities.

What this means in practice:

  • Expect new reporting requirements across housing, rough sleeping, planning and PRS standards
  • Joined-outcomes language will shape funding, scrutiny and reform — aligning with NHS, ICBs and police metrics
  • Stronger case for invest-to-save housing interventions, especially where they reduce demand on hospitals, justice or children’s services
  • Strategic housing leads must map services and funding to these indicators and evidence place-based delivery.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-government-outcomes-framework

  1. Health Inclusion Toolkit – make the housing case to the NHS

The Health Inclusion Toolkit (NHS England, June 2025) supports local systems to improve services for marginalised groups, including people experiencing homelessness, rough sleeping and complex disadvantage.

What’s inside:

  • Inclusion health audit templates for ICBs and primary care
  • Guidance on co-located and mobile outreach models
  • Focus on continuity of care through hospital discharge, prison release and street transitions.

Why it matters:

  • Strategic housing teams can use this to formally engage health partners around shared inclusion goals
  • Aligns with LGOF outcomes and strengthens the case for joint commissioning or dedicated housing roles in health pathways.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/health-inclusion-toolkit/