Support with the Household Support Fund, Autumn Budget 2021 and more

In this issue

Autumn Budget 2021: Increased support, but not for everyone
How councils can make best use of their Household Support Fund
New Zealand are using linked administrative data
On-demand webinar: How Kent County and district councils collaborate with data to tackle poverty
Evidence to the APPG on in-work poverty
Money and Pensions Service links to our Benefit and Budgeting Calculator
Congratulations to our clients for their wins at the IRRV Conference and Awards 2021
Deven Ghelani joined a panel on Universal Credit at the Conservative Party Conference
Events and awards: MALG and Credit Connect Awards
Join us and on 7th December for Christmas networking Drinks and Mince Pies
Next month’s webinar and people new

Autumn Budget 2021: Increased support, but not for everyone

In the Autumn Budget the Chancellor announced the first permanent increase in support for working households in receipt of Universal Credit since 2018.

Policy in Practice welcomes the long called-for 8% reduction to the Universal Credit taper as well as the 6.6% increase to the National Living Wage. However, with no additional support for the 3.5M people claiming Universal Credit that are out-of-work or the 2.3M still in receipt of means-tested legacy benefits (excluding Tax Credits), many households will continue to struggle as the cost of living increases in the coming.

Listen back to Deven Ghelani speaking with BBC Radio 5 Live Wake up Money and LBC Radio on our take on the Autumn Budget.
Read our policy experts analysis on what the budget means for welfare in the UK.

How councils can use their data to best allocate their Household Support Fund

The Government has launched a new £500 million support fund for vulnerable households over winter and Policy in Practice’s LIFT platform is set to help local authorities target this support effectively.

The Household Support Fund has been brought in to meet the immediate needs of those who are struggling to afford food, energy and water bills, and other related essentials. The Fund is also available to support households who are struggling to afford wider essentials. The Household Support Fund must be used in its entirety by March 2022.

Local authorities are being encouraged to target support from their monthly data shares as well as other local authority data. Policy in Practice’s LIFT platform is being used to help local authorities better target their fund to those households most in need of greater support.

We are looking forward to welcoming Julian Clift, Welfare Benefits Advice and Support Manager, Sutton Council on our next free webinar who will be discussing how to use data to target your Household Support Fund and other discretionary funding.

More details and how to register for the webinar can be found here.

New Zealand are using linked administrative data

New Zealand are doing incredible work using linked administrative data for research purposes. The New Zealand Treasury was interested to learn more about how Policy in Practice’s helps councils use administrative data for operational purposes, to directly help residents.

Members of the New Zealand Treasury team met with Deven Ghelani earlier in the month to learn more about what we do at Policy in Practice and how it can be replicated in New Zealand. They also combine their administrative data with a micro-simulation model, and we shared our lessons learned with respect to data accuracy, access and governance.

If we can help bring to life the potential and positivity of this approach in New Zealand and elsewhere then we are delighted to do so.

On-demand webinar: How Kent County and district councils collaborate with data to tackle poverty

We were delighted to host Zena Cooke, Corporate Director Finance at Kent County Council and Jane Worrell, Revenues and Benefits Senior Specialist at Folkestone and Hythe District Council in our October webinar on Kent County and district councils collaboration.

In a first for local government, Kent county and district councils have boldly chosen to collaboratively share their data to get powerful cross-county insights that will drive their poverty prevention activity. The information will help them to target of a wide range of campaigns to residents such as employment support, free school meal take-up, public health interventions, housing initiatives and benefits take up.

Listen back to this webinar to learn:

Kent County Council's vision for greater collaborative working with districts
Folkestone and Hythe District Council's impact achieved so far from data-led poverty prevention campaigns
How councils can use data to target the new Housing Support Grant most effectively.

View the slides and recording here

Evidence to the APPG on in-work poverty

Policy in Practice recently gave evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty’s inquiry on in-work poverty. The APPG wants to explore actions that both employers and government can take.

Policy in Practice’s recommendations are based on research and data analysis on in-work poverty, as well as work with frontline organisations. The four key points are:

Three in ten low-income working families in London are in relative poverty

In-work poverty is set to rise by 2022 due to the removal of the £20 a week uplift to Universal Credit, the introduction of the Health and Social Care Levy and rising living costs (see image below)
Aspects of Universal Credit increase in-work poverty by reducing the benefit income of working households. For example, the monthly assessment periods within Universal Credit mean that self-employed households, or households on zero-hours contracts, do not receive Universal Credit support when they need it
Self-employed households are more likely to be in poverty than low-income households who are in regular employment. Our analysis of a Welsh local authority found that 86% of low-income self-employed households were in relative poverty, compared to 55% of low-income households in regular employment

More information on our evidence to APPG here

Money and Pensions Service links to our Benefit and Budgeting Calculator

We are delighted that the Money and Pensions Service has updated their MoneyHelper webpage with our Benefit and Budgeting Calculator.

£10 billion in benefits goes unclaimed every year. As we navigate the aftermath of the pandemic, it is vital for UK residents to be claiming all that they are entitled to. This will go a long way in broadening our reach, helping vulnerable residents find out which benefits they are eligible to receive.

Congratulations to our clients for their wins at the IRRV Conference and Awards 2021

It was lovely to see so many people at the IRRV 2021 Conference earlier this month. We thoroughly enjoyed exhibiting at the in-person event and were so pleased to be able to reconnect with all of our clients after a very long 18 months.

Congratulations to all the very deserving winners at the IRRV awards evening. We are especially delighted to see such recognition for the work our clients do using our products. A special well done goes to:

Folkestone and Hythe District Council: Excellence in education and staff development
London Borough of Tower Hamlets: Excellence in innovation (service delivery)
CDER Group: Excellence in social inclusion
Walsall Council: Revenues team of the year

We were delighted to host the team from Tower Hamlets on our Policy in Practice table at the awards ceremony and were pleased to play a small part in their very successful year.

We would like to extend a huge thank you to all of our speakers at the conference:

Ellie Kershaw, LB Tower Hamlets and Louise Murphy, Policy in Practice on How administrative data fights food poverty
Dawn Cove, LB Redbridge and Alex Clegg, Policy in Practice on One council’s response to the end of Covid-19
Deven Ghelani and Sam Tims, Policy in Practice on Making the most of Universal Credit (and its data)

To view the slides from our presentations please click here

An extra thank you is due to Dawn Cove who took the time out of her day to speak with our sales representatives on our stand about how the LIFT dashboard has helped Redbridge Council through the pandemic. For more information on our activities at IRRV 2021 please click here

Deven Ghelani joined a panel on Universal Credit at the Conservative Party Conference

On a panel on Universal Credit at the Conservative Party Conference earlier this month, Deven Ghelani made the case for the importance of Universal Credit data to local authorities, to give them greater visibility over their most vulnerable residents. Deven made clear that Universal Credit is a government success story: it has proven itself through the pandemic, which has unfortunately been undermined by cuts in support but has no less stood the test of the crisis.

This was an incredibly timely discussion as it coincided with the end to the £20 uplift to Universal Credit and Deven helped to shine a light on routes to greater financial recovery for UK residents.

Deven was invited to speak alongside Nigel Mills, MP, Peter Aldous, MP as well as Dame Clare Moriarty, Chief Executive, Citizens Advice and Andy Brown, Chief Officer Manchester Citizens Advice. The panel discussed ‘A universal recovery? Making Universal Credit work in the post-COVID world’. The talk was delivered by Bright Blue, an independent think tank and pressure group lobbying for liberal conservative ideas.

You can watch the full recording of the panel discussion here

Events and awards: MALG and Credit Connect Awards

We are honoured to be shortlisted for a Credit Connect award in the Customer Engagement Solution category for our Benefit and Budgeting Calculator. Thank you to Financial Wellness Group and Sigma for their support with our nomination. We are shortlisted with some fantastic organisations and good luck to everyone on the 4th November. We will also be attending the think tank during the day and hope to see many of you there.

We were delighted to exhibit at this year’s Money Advice Liaison Group event on Thursday 28 October in London. The theme of this year's conference was Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion and we are pleased to be a part of this all important conversation, learning how we can lead the way in promoting greater diversity and inclusion in the debt and advice sector.

Join us and on 7th December for Christmas networking Drinks and Mince Pies

Join our festive celebration and raise a glass with your peers on Tuesday 7 December at our Westminster office overlooking the River Thames. You can raise a glass with the Policy in Practice team and your peers to review the year and look forward to what 2022 brings.

We look forward to seeing you there. Numbers are limited and registration is required to ensure Covid-19 procedures are followed.

Reserve your place here

Free webinar: How data can help you target your Household Support Fund and other discretionary funding

Wednesday 17 November
All our webinars are free and run from 10.30 to 11.45

Join this webinar to learn:

How councils can use their data to target their discretionary funding to support vulnerable households before crisis hits
Sutton Council’s innovative approach to tackling their resident’s Covid-19 income shocks
How Sutton Council use automated data refreshes to respond to struggling residents more effectively

We will be joined by guest speaker, Julian Clift, Welfare Benefits Advice and Support Manager, Sutton Council.

Details and register here

October's blog posts

Building a path out of in-work poverty
We submitted evidence to the APPG on in-work poverty. We shared recommendations based on our research and our work with frontline organisations.

Autumn Budget 2021: support for working families but gaps remain
Following the Autumn Budget 2021 announcements, our policy experts analyse what this means for welfare in the UK.

Challenges, effects and supports following Autumn's income shocks
Joined by Monica Kaur (MaPS), our webinar brought findings from our ground-breaking project with Trust for London on Autumn's income shocks.
Read more