Title	Date	Start Time	Duration	Register
Data driven success: From tackling homelessness to unlocking £1m income and recovering over £550k of debt More families struggled to pay their rent after COVID-19 and, as a result, Bracknell Forest Council saw an increase of 750% in the number of families who approached as homeless, up from 120 to 909 in four years. The council initially bought Policy in Practice’s LIFT platform in 2021 to tackle rising homelessness. Using LIFT, the council harnessed the power of its administrative data to identify residents for support. Notable campaigns include the timely allocation of over £4,000 in Discretionary Housing Payments and over £8,000 in emergency support to 31 households. But household financial health took another hit from the cost of living crisis and, by March 2022, two in ten families found paying bills a burden and were regularly in arrears. A proactive shift by a council officer extended LIFT's data driven approach from the homelessness team to other departments, with great results. The LIFT approach had proven its ability to identify residents at risk and allocate scarce resources. With more demand for council services, LIFT offered a way to give preventative support at scale across the borough. Join this webinar to learn: - The steps one officer took to get wider adoption of using data to tackle vulnerability across the council - In depth results from seven benefit take up campaigns that saw arrears of £550,000 reduced and missed income of £820,000 secured - Highlights from brand new analysis on unclaimed benefits and support in the UK in 2024 and what you can do about it	24/4/2024j/n/Y	10:30 BST2024-04-24T09:30:00ZH:i T	1.3 hours	Register
Missing out 2024: Why people don’t claim £23 billion of support they’re eligible for	29/5/2024j/n/Y	10:30 BST2024-05-29T09:30:00ZH:i T	1.3 hours	Register
Tackling child hunger by auto enrolment in Free School Meals	26/6/2024j/n/Y	10:30 BST2024-06-26T09:30:00ZH:i T	1.3 hours	Register

Title

Date

Start Time

Duration

Data driven success: From tackling homelessness to unlocking £1m income and recovering over £550k of debt More families struggled to pay their rent after COVID-19 and, as a result, Bracknell Forest Council saw an increase of 750% in the number of families who approached as homeless, up from 120 to 909 in four years.

The council initially bought Policy in Practice’s LIFT platform in 2021 to tackle rising homelessness.

Using LIFT, the council harnessed the power of its administrative data to identify residents for support. Notable campaigns include the timely allocation of over £4,000 in Discretionary Housing Payments and over £8,000 in emergency support to 31 households.

But household financial health took another hit from the cost of living crisis and, by March 2022, two in ten families found paying bills a burden and were regularly in arrears.

A proactive shift by a council officer extended LIFT's data driven approach from the homelessness team to other departments, with great results.

The LIFT approach had proven its ability to identify residents at risk and allocate scarce resources. With more demand for council services, LIFT offered a way to give preventative support at scale across the borough.

Join this webinar to learn:

- The steps one officer took to get wider adoption of using data to tackle vulnerability across the council
- In depth results from seven benefit take up campaigns that saw arrears of £550,000 reduced and missed income of £820,000 secured
- Highlights from brand new analysis on unclaimed benefits and support in the UK in 2024 and what you can do about it

24/4/2024

10:30 BST

1.3 hours

Missing out 2024: Why people don’t claim £23 billion of support they’re eligible for

29/5/2024

10:30 BST

1.3 hours

Tackling child hunger by auto enrolment in Free School Meals

26/6/2024

10:30 BST

1.3 hours

Distribute your support as effectively as
possible to help reduce poverty

We help councils model different options for council tax support
schemes, based on their local priorities.

Policy in Practice’s detailed and powerful analysis pointed us in the right direction and has been the main driver of the changes we’ve made to our Council Tax Reduction scheme, and the levels of support we’ve been able to build into it.

Clive JonesLuton Borough Council

Understand the impacts of changes to your Council Tax Support Scheme

See how changes you’re considering will affect your scheme costs, arrears and enforcement. Understand the likely impact on vulnerable groups

The default scheme may not be the best under Universal Credit

The roll out of Universal Credit full service changes both the amount of Council Tax Support households receive, and how much this will cost the council. Councils need to understand the full impact on households in their area, be they winners or losers, to accurately consider scheme changes that support the most vulnerable households, and work alongside Universal Credit.

Understand costs and impacts of:

– Your current CTR scheme
– Maintaining your current CTR scheme into the future
– Other CTR schemes designed to meet your objectives

Common scheme options

– Banded or discount schemes
– Changes to the minimum payment
– Protection for vulnerable households
– Changes to reduce administration costs
– Changes to work alongside Universal Credit
– Non-dependant deduction changes (eg flat-rate deductions)
– Changes to the default scheme (eg taper rate and savings limit)

Use experts and learn from others

– Get detailed insights suitable for Members and public consultation
– See what CTR schemes others have considered, rejected and implemented
– Understand how proposed changes will affect residents, arrears and support services
– Understand the implications for scheme administration to enable resource planning
– Give stakeholders confidence you’ve considered all options to reduce cost, while supporting residents

CTRS modelling

– Comprehensive report with costs and impacts of different CTR schemes
– Supplementary report with tables giving breakdowns of impact by demographics
– In person meetings with policy experts: briefing to discuss objectives and ideas, preliminary findings review and final presentation of findings

Our CTRS modelling is stand alone but is more detailed when done alongside a Policy Impact Analysis.

Comms toolkit

Download our FREE Council Tax support take up toolkit containing material for councils to use in communications to encourage residents to claim Council Tax support that they may be eligible for.

download

We couldn’t have got to where we have without Policy in Practice’s modelling work. The advice and intelligence that we’ve had has been first rate. The commitment, the detail and the effort that has gone into the modelling has been absolutely second to none. People have gone the extra mile and beyond to accommodate us. It’s been a very positive experience.

David Graaff, Haringey Council

Policy in Practice provided much deeper analysis of our data than we can do in the local authority. Their data is useful, they gave us graphs, highlights and visualisations that bring the messages to life and help with decision making.

Sally Sanders, Enfield Council

The reason we were able to get to the scheme that we finally got to was due to the depth of the analysis that was carried out by Policy in Practice on our behalf, and it was a massive help.

Allan Clarke, Barnet Council

Universal Credit roll out meant the cost of administering our council tax support scheme was becoming unsustainable. Policy in Practice’s modelling gave us the data our Members needed to understand the risk of ‘doing nothing’. They were able to agree to an amended scheme that will deliver a cost neutral solution for 2019/20 and minimise the impact on our most vulnerable customers.

Jean Saxby, Hastings Borough Council

We asked Policy in Practice to help us model our Council Tax Support scheme to give Members confidence that all options to reduce cost while supporting residents were covered. We also wanted to learn from other LAs who’ve already rolled out UC and we knew an external consultant was the best way to do that.

Ian Jones, London Borough of Hackney

Clive Jones, Luton Borough Council

Faced with a big funding gap Lambeth must make cost reductions. We commissioned Policy in Practice to give us clear, trustworthy information to evaluate proposed CTS scheme options and consult with affected groups. They’ve done this and more, by also showing us where our welfare support can be best targeted.

Tim Hillman-Brown, Lambeth Council

We needed to put CTRS scheme options together quickly. Policy in Practice won because of their clear and unique approach, experience, detailed understanding of welfare reform impacts and excellent team. The fact that the work has been produced in such a short space of time, and to such high quality standards, is particularly impressive.

Steve Hill, London Borough of Tower Hamlets

At North Hertfordshire District Council we wanted to spend more of our budget on council tax support whilst making sure we factored in the effects of welfare reforms. Policy in Practice helped us to accurately model our best CTRS scheme and establish the ideal level.

Howard Crompton, North Hertfordshire District Council