The resilience trap: Deepening the ‘risk shift’ in social policy via the crisis and resilience fund

In January 2026, the UK government announced the establishment of the Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF) that will come into force in April 2026 and replace the Household Support Fund. Ostensibly, the CRF aims to alleviate immediate hardship while moving individuals, families and households towards financial resilience. However, drawing on critical work on the ‘gritty citizen’ and on financialisation and resilience, I argue the CRF encapsulates a ‘resilience paradox’: those seeking help are expected to demonstrate self-sufficiency, yet are seeking help because of a lack of material security. This legitimizes interventions designed to increase people's ‘resilience’, conforming to the entrepreneurial, financialised, self. Taken in the context of enduring austerity localism, the further embedding of resilience thinking in English social policy sustains the ‘risk shift’ from collective risk pooling and the state on to individuals who are seldom able to shoulder such risk.