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In this issue:
- Chancellor announces a new support package to tackle rising living costs
- Managed migration to Universal Credit restarts
- The MJ covers our work tracking poverty in real time
- The New Statesman rebuffs Chancellor’s ‘computer says no’
- LBC phone in: helping people impacted by the rising cost of living
- More help for people with disabilities on GB news
- Access to benefits for Ukrainian refugees
- LIFT updates: Explore UC data and model the cost of living
- IRRV Spring conference
- June webinar: How to identify and support Just About Managing households using data
- Awards round-up
- People news and jobs
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Chancellor announces a new support package to tackle rising living costsChancellor Rishi Sunak has announced measures totalling £15 billion to support households during the cost of living crisis. The measures include one off
payments of:
- £650 for people on means tested benefits
- £150 for people on disability benefits (on top of the £650 if eligible)
- £300 for pensioners receiving winter fuel payments
- £400 for every household instead of the previously proposed £200 energy discount. This will not need to be paid back
Deven Ghelani said: "The Chancellor is rightly using the benefit system and energy bills to distribute support directly to families. Local authorities will breathe a sigh of relief that they don't have to develop another new scheme from scratch. The
Household Support Fund has been extended for a further six months, with an essential £1.5 billion being distributed by councils in the 18 months to March 2023. With energy prices rising from £1,277 last October to £2,800 this October, and support averaging £1,200 per household, there is no doubt that some households will struggle more than others, and many still won't be able to cope."We were asked by the Centre for Social Justice to calculate the cost of three policy options to increase Universal Credit, in order to protect low income households from high and rising inflation. Read our report: Uprating of Universal Credit elements and work allowances Read coverage of the CSJ’s report in The Telegraph
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Managed Migration to Universal Credit restarts
Managed migration to Universal Credit began again on Monday 9 May, starting in Bolton and Medway. In our May webinar we explored the migration strategy with Graeme Connor, Chief
Analyst from DWP and Michelle Birley, Customer Support Manager at The Guinness Group.
Listen back on demand to our webinar: Migration to Universal Credit during the cost of living crisis
We’re helping people get more control over their money as they are migrated to UC via our benefits calculator.
We recently built a new feature showing people what their accurate next month’s UC payment will be. Now we’ve added functionality to compare how much money people will receive on legacy benefits and UC during managed migration. The calculator can now calculate transitional protection too.
Visit the Benefit and Budgeting Calculator
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For local authorities, we’ve enhanced our LIFT platform to give visibility over who may be better or worse off under Universal Credit. For households who have already migrated, we can identify households who are benefit capped and who may have low financial resilience due to deductions from UC awards. This information gives councils the ability to target support to individual households who need it. Find out more about LIFT |
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The MJ covers our work tracking poverty in real timePrior to the Chancellor’s announcement, recent analysis by Policy in Practice looked at how data can be used to face the poverty crisis head on. Covered in The MJ, and working with
Trust for London, Policy in Practice compiled local authority data to analyse current poverty rates in the UK. As temporary Covid-19 policies are wound down, many families will dip below the poverty line as they navigate the cost of living crisis.
We investigated how local and national governments can act now to prevent people falling into poverty.
Read the full
article
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Deven Ghelani rebuffs Chancellor’s ‘computer says no’ in The New Statesman
Rishi Sunak recently said that IT issues were to blame for the government's inability to increase welfare benefits more regularly than once per year.
Asked to comment on the Chancellor’s claims by The New Statesman, Deven Ghelani, co-creator of Universal Credit said, “Where there is a will, there is a way. People on legacy benefits could be sent a one-off supplement.”
This was ultimately the approach taken by the Chancellor
in his emergency package.
Read more on Deven’s suggested solutions here
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LBC phone in: helping people impacted by the rising cost of living
Deven Ghelani recently joined Shelagh Fogarty on LBC radio to talk about the cost of living crisis.
Answering questions from
listeners, Deven was able to give callers some clarity about the support available, and how to claim it. Queries included help for mature students and council tax support for people who have migrated to Universal Credit.
The questions showed what more needs to be done to improve awareness of benefits available and how the social security system is designed to help people.
Read our write up
here
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More help for people with disabilities on GB News
We were invited to speak on GB News about new statistics revealing that people with disabilities are twice as likely to struggle paying their energy bills as prices increase.
Sophia Warren, Policy and Data Analyst for Policy in Practice, outlined some of the extra costs that some people with disabilities face. She explored the government’s new cost of living support measures and how they fall short for people with disabilities.
Watch the segment here
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Access to benefits for Ukrainian refugees
Our Benefit and Budgeting Calculator can help those who have left Ukraine following the Russian invasion get the support they are eligible for.
Our calculator is frequently updated to reflect changing areas of need. Clicking on the ‘find out
more’ tabs will ensure you submit the right information.
Visit the Benefit and Budgeting Calculator
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LIFT updates: Explore your UC data and model the cost of living
Maximise the value of your current Universal Credit data using LIFT
We have begun incorporating Universal Credit data share (UCDS) within LIFT for some clients. This data further improves our accuracy with Universal Credit households that are in receipt of council tax support. It also gives LIFT clients the ability to:
- identify benefit capped households
- better understand financial resilience by taking into account deductions from Universal Credit
The updated Universal Credit screen captures these updates, see below. This update and the new screen is available to all LIFT clients sharing Universal Credit data with us.
Model the rising cost of living using LIFT
We have updated the forecasts in our policy engine to take into account steep increases in the cost of living. This includes:
- Inflation at a 40-year high and expected to hit 7.4% this month
- Benefits uprated by 3.1% for the new financial year
- Increase in the energy cap
We also added the ability to identify households in council tax bands E to H in response to a discretionary fund made available to support households in these council tax bands.
In addition,
more money was announced for the Household Support Fund and the Warm Homes Discount to support households through the cost of living crisis. The updated forecasts in LIFT will help clients to plan and support these households through the crisis.
Find out more about
LIFT
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IRRV Spring Conference 2022
Policy in Practice was delighted to attend the IRRV Spring Conference 2022 on 17 and 18 May in Leeds, and it was great to meet many of you in person there.
The cost of living crisis was a strong theme running throughout the conference, from the speakers and the conversations we had with delegates.
We hosted a workshop on the second day of the conference titled Income maximisation: three projects that tackle the cost of living crisis.
Deven Ghelani, James Rawlins and Tylor-Maria Johnson from Policy in Practice were joined by special guest speaker Zoe Kent, Revenues and Benefits Manager, Swale, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Councils.
We presented case studies about:
- How a County and District Councils collaborate with data to tackle poverty
- Automating council tax support awards to Universal Credit claimants
- An evaluation framework for the design and delivery of Local Welfare Assistance schemes
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June Webinar: How to identify and support Just About Managing households using data
Wednesday 29 June 10.30-11.45
The government has said it wants to make life easier for the 'squeezed middle' or people who are just about managing. These are the families who are not rich and they are also not those on the lowest incomes. Despite most being in work, they are struggling to meet their cost of living and it is no wonder.
Join this webinar to
learn:
- Who is just about managing now but at risk in the future due to the rising cost of living
- Which datasets can be used to identify families in danger of debt
- How local authorities can target support to avert crisis
Reserve your place here
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| Awards round up
Northern Housing Awards
Congratulations to Stockport Homes Group, & ADRA on their wins, Magenta Housing for their highly
commended submission, and Grŵp Cynefin for their shortlisting at the Northern Housing Awards.
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| British Data Awards
Congratulations to Kent County Council and districts for reaching the final of the British Data Awards. Sadly they didn’t win this time but their position as finalists in the Data for Good initiative was well deserved.
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Please vote for us at the Digital Leaders 100 Awards
We’re thrilled that MAST (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Tracker) is up for the Big Data Innovation of the Year award at the Digital Leaders 100 Awards 2022.
Pairing with Walsall council, MAST is a digital tool that lets social workers easily see if other safeguarding partners are actively involved with a person or address. It does this by linking data
across Adults, Children, Health, Fire and Police services to show where intervention might be needed so they can make better-informed decisions.
The finalist that receives the most votes from the public will win the People’s choice award so please vote for us!
Vote for MAST to win the People’s Choice Award
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People news and jobsBig congratulations go to Mary-Alice Doyle who welcomed a baby boy on 22 April. We send the new family all our best wishes.We say hello and extend a very warm welcome to our new Apprentice Engineer, Paolo Ghidoni and Marketing Executive, Jen Thompson. We also say goodbye to David Marsh.We are currently recruiting for:- Senior Policy and Data
Analyst
- Client Services Manager
- Customer Account Executive
- Policy and Research Manager
- Engineering team members
- Business and Account Manager
Check out our latest jobs and find out what it's like to work at Policy in Practice
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