Preview
October news from Policy in Practice
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In this issue

  • We've moved, welcome to Public Hall
  • Why it pays for the government to fund Free School Meals
  • Groundbreaking 18-month study into Universal Credit in Wales
  • Our October conference talks on data for good, Covid-19 recovery, Universal Credit and debt
  • People news
  • Free webinars and new LIFT video
We've moved, welcome to Public Hall

This month we moved into our brand new office at Public Hall in the heart of Westminster. We’re delighted to be joining this GovTech focused community of startups and innovators who are transforming public services.

It's a beautiful space, even closer to government than we were already. With so many new recruits this year we wanted a more suitable and flexible home for our growing team in light of the pandemic. It has a beautiful terrace, where we would love to host you once the pandemic one-day subsides. If you are in Westminster, you would be welcome to join us for a socially distant cup of tea, and a convenient space to work.

Contact us

Why it pays for the government to fund Free School Meals

New analysis by Policy in Practice into funding Free School Meals finds that parents must earn almost three times more than it would cost the government to feed their children over the Christmas holidays. We show that it will cost the government 60% less than parents to feed their children during school holidays.

Our analysis backs Marcus Rashford’s campaign to expand free school meals to all children in families in receipt of Universal Credit.
In addition, it’s possible for the government to identify every child eligible for healthy start vouchers using Universal Credit data. Councils can use this data to identify families facing food insecurity, and help them to access a host of other benefits during this pandemic, including council tax support and social tariffs.

Policy in Practice is a proud signatory to Marcus Rashford’s petition to end child food hunger. We have previously called on the government to extend free school meals to 1 million more children on Universal Credit, to improve work incentives for families.

It’s difficult for parents to work during the school holidays at the best of times. To expect parents to find additional earnings during a pandemic, when it costs the government 60% less to achieve the same end goal, is unrealistic. The government is best placed to take responsibility.

Read Why it pays for the government to fund Free School Meals
Groundbreaking 18-month study into Universal Credit in Wales

Commissioned by the Welsh Government, Policy in Practice has completed a major 18-month data-led study of how Universal Credit has affected the Welsh Council Tax Reduction Scheme. The Welsh Government also wanted to know whether the introduction of Universal Credit had led to any changes in the level of rent and council tax arrears.

This study broke new ground for Policy in Practice:

  • We made extensive use of administrative data from all 22 Welsh local authorities, tracking the benefit journeys of claimants in four waves over a period of 12 months, and matching with data on rent arrears and council tax arrears. It was the first time we have used data from so many authorities and housing associations in one national project. The matching and analysis was complex and very challenging.

  • We also ran two large-scale surveys to get a better understanding of the personal experiences of Universal Credit not evident from data analysis alone. We invited people to take part in the survey in several ways, one of which was via a link in our award-winning Benefit and Budgeting Calculator. Nearly 500 actual and potential benefit claimants completed the claimant survey, and nearly 500 stakeholders such as social and private landlords, local authority officials and third sector organisations completed the stakeholder survey.

Our five key findings were:

  1. A generous Council Tax Reduction (CTR) Scheme pays off
  2. Universal Credit has resulted in some council tax and rent arrear
  3. Awareness of CTR, and take-up, are still too lo
  4. The impact of Universal Credit on CTR can be mitigated by changes to the schem
  5. More help should be given to those claiming Universal Credit

We're delighted that the Welsh Government has now commissioned further analysis to understand the impact of COVID-19.

Read more

Our October talks on data for good, Covid-19 recovery, Universal Credit and debt

We’ve had a busy October delivering presentations at five different conferences, as well as hosting our own webinar How to predict the demand for your customer-facing services in April 2021 with Clive Jones from Luton Council. Our talks broadly fell into four themes of using data analysis for good, how councils can recover from the impacts of Covid-19, how Universal Credit has fared and what more needs to be done, and finally, what organisations can do to build resilience ahead of an impending debt crisis for many.

View our slides from each conference below.

Data for good


AIM: Data protection, data governance, data management
Tuesday 29 September. GDS Data Science Festival. Deven Ghelani spoke with Paul Withers, DPO for Walsall Council, about our lessons so far from a powerful new project to link data across adult services, children's services, public health, the NHS and police. The project is backed by the LGA and NHS digital.
View slides

Embedding a data-driven culture
Thursday 15 October. Housemark: Ten Days of Data festival.
Jade Alsop joined the speaker panel to explore fostering and embedding a data-driven culture with examples from some of our housing clients.

View slides and View recording


Covid-19 recovery

COVID-19: Who has fallen through the gaps?
Wednesday 7 October. IRRV: Virtual Annual Conference.
Zoe Charlesworth presented analysis by Policy in Practice that looked at over 2,500 individual cases of households who struggled with or missed out on support.
View slides and recording

How viable is your council tax support scheme?
Tuesday 20 October. CIPFA. Public Finance Live 2020.
Zoe Charlesworth and Megan Mclean examined what the worsening financial crisis means for council’s collection rates, budget setting and council tax support schemes, and looked at efforts from across government to improve how council tax debt is recovered.
View slides and recording


Universal Credit

What Financial Advisers need to know about Universal Credit
Wednesday 30 September. iPipeline. Deven Ghelani joined Justin Harper, LV, to deliver this introduction to Universal Credit and the welfare system for iPipeline's audience of financial advisors.
View slides and v
iew recording


The Future of the Welfare State: Universal Credit, Furlough Schemes and Other Initiatives to Support Those in Need
Thursday 1 October. Public Policy Exchange. Deven Ghelani talked about the effectiveness of Universal Credit and the social policies introduced in the light of COVID-19. He joined speakers Debbie Abrahams MP, Steve McCabe MP, Dr Sophie Wickham and Dr Guy Standing.
Details here

Debt

A tale of two councils: ReImagine Debt Collection
Tuesday 6 October. IRRV: Virtual Annual Conference.
Deven Ghelani talked about how two councils identified which residents owed multiple debts to them, how they stabilised their incomes, and how they tracked the effectiveness of support.

View slides and recording

Building financial resilience to get ahead of the curve
Thursday 29 October, MALG: Virtual summit. Sarah Lambert discussed research and initiatives we've developed to support organisations to get ahead of the curve.
View slides

People news

Hello and welcome to our new joiners

  • Verity Ambler, Policy and Communications Executive
  • Zach Mills, Policy and Data Analyst
  • Oliver Huish, Lead Developer
  • Henry Naish, Senior Data Analyst

Goodbye and good luck

It is with huge thanks and a heavy heart that we say goodbye to Alannah McGhee, Senior Marketing Executive, this month. Alannah is taking up a senior digital marketing role for a TV production company and we wish her the very best of luck with this exciting new role.  

Finally, Deven is at the Old Bailey for the next four weeks on jury duty.
How to find the right debt solution for everyone
Wed 11 November at 10:30 to 11:30

In today’s economic climate falling into debt is perilously easy, getting out is hard. Firms in the debt sector have adopted flexible and ethical collection practices to support families who are struggling, yet costs and the time taken to collect have increased.

Whether you’re a utility company, advice agency, local authority or housing association, you’re are on the frontline for helping people in debt.

You can boost the financial resilience of households by helping them to increase their income. In this way, you can increase collection rates and social impact, in the knowledge that you’re doing the right thing.

Join this webinar to hear:

  • How COVID-19 has already hit people’s incomes, and what’s in store
  • How to reduce existing arrears and the chance of a customer falling into arrears
  • How to minimise the cost of debt collection

Register here

2020: Policy review of the year, and a forward look to 2021
Wed 9 December at 10:30 to 11:30

2020 has brought fundamental changes to our lives, both personally and professionally. As our economy took second place to our health, so the welfare safety net came to the fore to support families who faced an income shock, seemingly overnight.

In this webinar we look back at the policy response to the seismic shifts in our economy and society wrought by the pandemic. We will revisit the research findings we uncovered from our analysis for clients across both local and central government. And, as the focus turns to the health of our economy, we look at what 2021 means for people facing redundancy, debt or lower incomes.

Join this webinar to hear:

  • How well the COVID-19 welfare changes worked, and what should happen next
  • How living standards changed this year, and what the future holds
  • The outlook for 2021 and how organisations can best support families

Our policy experts will discuss our analysis and what this means in 2021 for council tax support schemes, housing and homelessness demand, the outlook for living standards in the context of economic recovery, Universal Credit and Brexit.


Register here


Our webinars are free and start at 10.30 for 1 hour 15 mins. If you can’t make the date please register anyway to automatically receive the slides and recording. Contact hello@policyinpractice.co.uk with any questions.


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