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In this issue:
- Mini Budget: Tax cuts work for low income families too
- Tightening rules on Universal Credit's working hours won't fix labour shortages
- Our view from the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences
- Mayor of London launches benefits entitlement checker, powered by Policy in Practice
- Energy Price Guarantee: Just About Managing households will still be worse off
- Free webinar: Forecasting the fight against fuel poverty
- How to identify and support just about managing families using data
- Policy in Practice is an approved G-Cloud 13 supplier
- Policy in Practice shortlisted for a UK Housing Awards 2022
- Upcoming events: see you there
- September's blog posts
- Jobs at Policy in Practice
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Mini Budget: Tax cuts work for low income families too
In the Chancellor's mini budget on Friday 23 September a tax cutting Growth Plan 2022 that aims to boost economic prosperity of the nation was announced. The driving belief behind the measures
is that tax cuts will incentivise work by allowing higher earners to keep more of what they earn.
We argue that the same principles apply for low earners too and could encourage more people into work, boosting incomes to help meet essential costs during this cost of living crisis. A restoration of work allowances would give 1.6 million low earning families a much needed additional £422 a year. Our recent analysis for the Centre for Social Justice called for tax cuts for Universal Credit (UC) households in the form of
increases to the work allowance. This would see around 1.87 million low-income working families keep more money before their UC is reduced, boosting their annual income by £449 on average. Other new changes such as the removal of the 1.25% National Insurance increase and the 1% reduction of the basic rate of income tax will be reflected in our Better Off Calculator and LIFT as they come into practice.
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| Tightening rules on Universal Credit's working hours won't fix labour shortages
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The mini budget also tightened rules around Universal Credit. From January around 120,000 people on UC must earn the equivalent of 15 hours' work a week or risk having their benefits reduced.
Deven Ghelani discussed the impact of increased working hours for UC claimants on Times Radio and in the i newspaper.
He said "If people aren't working those additional hours, they've probably got a good reason."
Watch Deven's appearance on Times Radio
Read Deven's contribution to i news
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Our view from the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences
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| Deven Ghelani and Joe Hollingworth attended the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham where they spoke at and attended many fringe events.
Deven spoke alongside DWP Minister Victoria Prentice at the Trussell Trust's fringe session titled What works? How to build financial resilience in
our communities. He highlighted the flexible and responsive nature of Universal Credit, as demonstrated during the pandemic, before going on to talk about the need to uplift benefits by the rate of inflation to tackle the cost of living crisis.
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| Earlier Deven spoke at the NPC, ERSA, Shaw Trust fringe session titled The cost-of-living crisis - how can employment support and civil society respond to crisis and recession?
Deven talked about how the workforce is smaller now than before the pandemic and how people who left the labour market won’t be drawn back in by threats and benefit cuts. He outlined the need to make positive case for work and to support people properly. He said "You can’t bake a bigger pie with less flour."
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| Deven Ghelani and Alex Clegg attended the Labour Party Conference in a windy Liverpool where they met Stephen Timms and Jonathan Ashworth, amongst others.
At the Joseph Rowntree Foundation fringe event on social security Alex suggested to panel that the ambition for Universal Credit should be widened so that claimants automatically get the full range of support, such as help with Council Tax and social tariffs, thereby reducing the billions of pounds of unclaimed support.
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| Mayor of London launches benefits entitlement checker, powered by Policy in Practice
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We are delighted to have been chosen by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly to create the first London-wide entitlement tracker which went live on 28 September.
Designed to tackle the rising cost of living the new calculator helps Londoners to:
- Get personalised benefit advice with links to immediately apply
- Compare income under
the current system and Universal Credit
- Save and download information about benefits and how to maximise income
Visit http://better-off.london.gov.uk
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Energy Price Guarantee: Just About Managing households will still be worse off
The new Energy Price Guarantee will reduce the October energy price rise from an expected £3,549 to £2,500 for the average household for the next two years.
Our analysis finds that:
- Large households will pay £3,450
- Energy inefficient properties could cost large families up to £8,000 a year
- Prepayment customers face a poverty premium of 2%
The amount that people pay can vary significantly, based on:
- the size of their home
- how energy efficient the property is
- whether the bill is paid by direct debit or prepaid
- the household’s actual usage of gas and electricity
Energy inefficiency can cost 3 times as much
- Large families living in energy-inefficient homes will pay 8 times more than smaller households living in modern properties
- Small households living in energy-efficient homes will pay £1,086
- Large families in energy inefficient properties could pay over £8,000 per year
On top of this, households on a prepayment meter face a poverty premium of 2%
- A single person household in an ABC rated property paying by DD will pay 57% less than the average UK household
- A large household in an inefficient home could pay around £8,428 a year
Read Your energy bills
are NOT capped
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| Free webinar: Forecasting the fight against fuel poverty
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Tuesday 18 October 10.30 to 11.45 The continuing rise in the cost of living calls for effective ways to identify households most at risk of falling into food and fuel poverty.
One council has adopted a pioneering approach to tackling the cost of living crisis. It is using administrative data to project the impact of the rising costs on households' financial resilience.
The insights gained help the allocation of cost of living support packages and evaluation of targets.
Join
this webinar to learn:
- Analysis of the trends in energy bills for low income households and the number of families in cash shortfall due to rising costs
- How the cost of living support packages will affect the monthly take-home income of low-income working age and pensioner households from October
- Practical interventions that councils can make to help households on low incomes
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How to identify and support just about managing families using data
In our recent webinar, How to identify and support just about managing families with data, we were joined by Jane Worrell, Revenues and Benefits Senior Specialist at Folkestone and Hythe District Council to discuss:
- The cost of living crisis
- What Folkestone and Hythe District Council is doing to support its residents
- Using data the council already holds (known families)
- Using third-party
datasets (unknown just about managing families)
- The role data can play in targeting support
Jane highlighted how they provide help to residents who are clearly struggling with finances. The challenge is to identify families who aren't yet struggling but soon might be as costs increase.
Folkestone and Hythe is using its administrative data together with new Mosaic data from Experian in its LIFT platform to learn more about living costs, work and skills experiences and digital inclusion faced by residents. They have identified families in need of support but not yet within the welfare system to target preventative support to.
"Having additional insight into who might be struggling, we can tailor the message in the recovery notice. We get a better outcome for the individual and a better outcome for the council."
Jane Worrell, Revenues and Benefits Senior Specialist, Folkestone and Hythe District Council
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| Policy in Practice is an approved G-Cloud 13 supplier
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We are delighted to announce that we have been selected to become an approved supplier on G-Cloud 13 by the Crown Commercial Service when it goes live on 9 November.
The G-Cloud purchasing framework helps customers in the UK public to find and buy cloud computing services.
In the meantime, all Policy in Practice's products are already available to buy via G-Cloud 12, see the direct links to buy below.
Read G-cloud buyer's guide
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Policy in Practice shortlisted for a UK Housing Awards 2022
We are thrilled to announce that Policy in Practice has been shortlisted for Solutions Partner of the Year at the UK Housing Awards 2022.
We're looking forward to the ceremony on 25 November.
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Upcoming events: see you there
We are exhibiting at:
- IRRV Annual Conference, Telford on Tuesday 4 to Thursday 6 October
Solace Summit, Birmingham on Tuesday 11 to Thursday 13 October
We are speaking at:
- IRRV Annual
Conference on Wednesday 5 October
- Housing Data and Analytics Summit, Birmingham on Thursday 6 October
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| Forecasting the fight against fuel poverty
IRRV Annual Conference, Telford
Wednesday 5 October from 0900 to 0930, Welfare and benefits stream
Hear Tylor-Maria Johnson and Izabel Bahia from Policy in Practice present our latest policy analysis about fuel poverty. They will be joined by Pat Knight, Gravesham District Council, who will share the powerful results achieved for residents from their data-informed poverty prevention campaigns.
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September's blog posts
Mini-Budget 2022: Tax cuts work for low income families too
We critique the Mini Budget 2022 and explain why tax cuts work for low income families tooRead blog post
Energy Price Guarantee: Just About Managing Households will still be worse off
The Energy Price Guarantee will limit the energy price cap to £2,500, providing certainty of the maximum cost of a unit of energy for two years
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Energy Price Guarantee: low income households will still struggle this winter
We review what the new Energy Price Guarantee means for families and their energy bills, and identify where help is still needed
Read blog post
Cost of living crisis: Low income families with children set to be £1,683 worse off this winter
Our latest cost of living analysis gives a full breakdown of how low income households will fare this winter
Read blog postCost of living: How the energy price cap affects different households
We look at how the energy price cap affects different households and find that energy bills could jump to £11,000 for larger families
Read blog post
New analysis: Three costed policies to help low-income households with the cost of living crisis
Our three costed policies to help households through the cost of living crisis require investment of £6.8billion to prevent severe hardship
Read blog postNew analysis: Increasing Universal Credit by 13.3% will help low-income households pay for increased energy costs
Our new analysis shows that increasing Universal Credit will neutralise rising energy bills and household costs for low income households
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