A message from Deven Ghelani, Director and Founder of Policy in Practice

As 2024 comes to a close I want to take a moment to reflect on a year of remarkable achievements. I'd like to celebrate the extraordinary impact our team, partners and clients have had in supporting vulnerable households across the UK.

We were founded to help households in need navigate the complex benefit system. We work with our clients to close the £23 billion unclaimed support gap we identified in our research.

This year we continued to shine a spotlight on unclaimed benefits, particularly with our GLA Pension Credit campaign, which delivered £19 million in Pension Credit takeup across 26 London boroughs.

This campaign, alongside impactful local authority partnerships, demonstrated the power of data driven outreach to improve social outcomes. All 15,000 of these households will get the benefit next year too. We look forward to building on this impact.

Expanding our impact through innovation

We will continue to grow our impact with our clients and partners in 2025. Our focus on innovation allowed us to launch new capabilities, which we will continue to rollout next year:

• Apply Once: This enhancement to our Better Off Calculator simplifies access to discretionary support. It pushes data, with consent, into assessment and billing systems. Several leading local authorities and utilities have adopted this one click approach, saving advisors time and improving claimant experiences
  
  
• MAST rollout: Following a successful trial, our Multi Agency Safeguarding Tool expanded to its second region, integrating data from social care, fire, police and health services. MAST helps social workers to act more proactively, and to make better informed decisions
  
  
• Campaign automation: With enhanced capabilities through our LIFT platform, we supported clients by automating outreach via letters, texts and emails, to boost benefit take up. Our local authority partners have already committed to campaigns reaching over 52,000 households missing out on Free School Meals, Healthy Start and Attendance Allowance in the first half of 2025 using the campaign tool. I would love to see more local authorities join them

Addressing social challenges beyond financial hardship

I'm especially proud of the collaborative strides we’ve made this year. Together with our partners, we addressed social challenges beyond financial hardship. From tackling social isolation through pension credit campaigns to providing tools for safeguarding and prevention, our collective impact has been profound.

One of our biggest goals has been to get more Universal Credit data to local authorities so that they can help more people. I'm pleased to see this high on the government's agenda.

Highlights from 2024 and looking ahead to 2025

In 2024 we celebrated many highlights, notably:

• Supporting over 15,000 households through LIFT campaigns
• Landing our message on unclaimed benefits, with over 12 billion media impressions

That said, the cost of living crisis remains a pressing issue for many as we head into 2025. Energy bills remain high, water bills are set to rise this April, and the economy has not grown as we hoped. These pressures will have direct implications for individual wellbeing, and for teams across collections, health and social care.

To address these challenges:

• We’ll continue to invest in our tools and services, to help our local authority partners deliver cost effective support to their residents
• We'll build our partnerships with organisations like Lightning Reach, Debtstream and Advice Pro to broaden and further streamline access to essential grants and support
• We’ll advance our research to influence policy, and help councils take proactive steps in safeguarding vulnerable communities

Thank you for your support

On behalf of the entire team at Policy in Practice, I extend my heartfelt thanks to you, our clients, partners and supporters. Your dedication and trust fuel our mission to make public policy work better for people.

As we celebrate the holiday season I wish you a restful Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Together, let’s make 2025 another year of impactful change.

If there’s more we can do to help you help others please reach out to me at deven@policyinpractice.co.uk or the team at hello@policyinpractice.co.uk.

Best wishes

Deven