How Surrey uses shared data and co-ordinated delivery to support residents across the county

Like other areas, Surrey’s residents have faced increased cost of living pressures recently. While the county is often perceived as a wealthy area, pockets of financial vulnerability exist and some residents have become newly eligible for support. Identifying households that are missing out on entitlements and ensuring they receive timely support is an increasing priority for councils.

The different district and borough councils operating across Surrey each have their own datasets and approaches to tackling vulnerability, making it difficult to build a consistent picture of need and contributing to residents across the county experiencing different levels of support.

At the same time, councils faced ongoing resource pressures with varying levels of capacity.

Surrey wanted to strengthen its knowledge of how residents were experiencing financial hardship and create a more cohesive approach to identifying and supporting vulnerability across the county. Doing so required building trust and confidence across the respective councils to work together with shared insights.

To address this challenge, Household Support Fund was used to introduce Policy in Practice’s LIFT platform across participating districts and boroughs.

LIFT gives councils a clearer understanding of financial resilience and vulnerability by connecting multiple data sets. The insights from LIFT allow for the identification of households that are missing out on support, and for them to be targeted with proactive income maximisation campaigns.

Nine of Surrey’s eleven districts and borough councils are now participating in the programme, including Elmbridge, Epsom & Ewell, Mole Valley, Reigate & Banstead, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Tandridge and Woking.

The shared insight has supported a more co-ordinated approach to benefit take up. Shared priority campaigns where a consistent, county-wide approach could have the greatest impact were defined with initial campaigns focused on improving take up rates of Free School Meals and Pension Credit.

At the same time, districts and boroughs retained the flexibility to use LIFT in their own way to reflect local services and priorities.

LIFT’s Campaign Manager tool enables councils to act on these insights by delivering targeted outreach campaigns to targeted residents who may be eligible for support. Automating much of the campaign process allows councils to run large campaigns quickly, at scale, without requiring significant extra capacity.

Alongside the technology, Surrey developed a LIFT community of officers from across the participating councils. Regular collaboration between peers has helped build confidence in working with data insights while creating opportunities to share ideas and learn from each other’s approaches.

Surrey’s approach has delivered measurable outcomes for residents across the county, while also strengthening collaboration between councils.

County-wide campaigns unlocked £1.2 million a year for residents and schools, rising to over £9 million over time

A county-wide Free School Meals campaign identified families that were eligible but not claiming support. District councils participating in LIFT could identify families likely to qualify, but could not see who was already receiving the benefit.

The county council, which holds the school census data, could see those already claiming but not those missing out. By combining these datasets, following robust data sharing arrangements, councils were able to identify eligible families and automatically enrol them for Free School Meals.

Free School Meals campaign results:

• 388 additional pupils receiving Free School Meals
• £531,666 in additional funding for schools through the Pupil Premium
• Around £194,000 in direct savings for families
• £4,168,317 in estimated lifetime value of support

Surrey also ran campaigns to increase take up of Pension Credit and Attendance Allowance, in partnership with Age UK, helping older residents to access unclaimed support they were entitled to.

Pension Credit campaign results:

• 62 households made new successful claims
• £272,047 in annual support awarded
• £3,415,378 in estimated lifetime value of support

Attendance Allowance campaign results:

• 52 households made new successful claims
• £233,989 in annual support awarded
• £1,452,563 in estimated lifetime value of support

Local innovation across Surrey

Alongside the county-wide campaigns, participating districts and boroughs are also using LIFT in different ways to support their residents.

Reigate & Banstead Borough Council used LIFT and Campaign Manager to run a series of targeted campaigns on issues including Healthy Start, Attendance Allowance and water bill support, helping unlock over £1million in financial support for residents while reducing administrative workload. For more information on Reigate & Banstead’s award winning approach, click here.

Spelthorne Borough Council used LIFT insight to support social prescribing work, targeting loneliness interventions and discretionary support for lone parents and residents with disabilities. They also took part in a direct payment pilot, which delivered financial support while helping the council to engage hard to reach residents and provide more holistic, wraparound support..

Elmbridge Borough Council promoted a free local sports centre scheme for low income families, contributing to improved health and wellbeing for 51 participating residents who were offered free passes.

Surrey Heath Borough Council used LIFT’s debt segmentation insights to review council tax arrears cases and identify vulnerabilities that might otherwise have been missed.

Tandridge District Council used LIFT to map food poverty support across the district, helping ensure services are located where the need is greatest.

Woking Borough Council used LIFT and Campaign Manager to participate in county-wide campaigns that would have been difficult to deliver with existing resources.

Runnymede Borough Council was recognised with an iESE award for Best Use of Digital, Tech and Data, including its use of LIFT data to support welfare outreach work.

Mole Valley District Council and Epsom and Ewell Borough Council are currently onboarding to LIFT.

Across Surrey, these examples show how a shared insight platform can support a co-ordinated county-wide approach while maintaining autonomy for individual councils to respond to the needs of their own communities.

Ed Bowen, Housing Benefit Technical Manager, Runnymede Borough Council, said:

“The LIFT platform has been effective in targeting support to residents by groups and then being able to drill down to an individual household. The free school meal campaign would never have happened without the initiative and bringing together the County and Districts & Boroughs.

“We have found it particularly useful in triaging claims for Discretionary Housing Payment providing a more accurate instant view of a households income against expenses and to identify other benefits that could be used to meet housing costs, and set out our experience and use of the technology in our ward winning submission for iESE Public Sector Excellence award for Best use of digital, technology and Data insight.”

In addition to the direct benefits for residents, LIFT has also enabled stronger collaboration between Surrey’s councils.

Officers from districts and boroughs now regularly share learnings through the Surrey LIFT community, building confidence in working with data and insights, and supporting the development of new approaches.

The chosen approach has maintained local autonomy while aligning councils around a shared resident-centric goal of building financial resilience.

Building on the progress made so far, Surrey councils are continuing to use LIFT and Campaign Manager to strengthen support for residents across the county.

Future campaigns are already underway, including new county-wide work focused on improving access to employment support for residents who may benefit from extra help into work.

As Surrey moves through Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), the partnership between the county, districts and boroughs provides a strong foundation for continued collaboration. The shared insight developed through LIFT will help councils maintain a clear understanding of financial vulnerability across Surrey and support informed decision making in the years ahead.

Together, this approach ensures that improving outcomes for residents remains the central focus, while allowing councils to continue learning from one another and adapting support to local needs.

1. Start with a shared focus on resident outcomes
A common goal to improve financial resilience and ensure residents receive the support they are entitled to helped align councils across Surrey.

2. Invest time in building trust and partnerships
Establishing confidence between the county and districts and boroughs was essential. Collaboration, shared learning and open communication helped create the relationships needed to work effectively across organisational boundaries.

3. Use shared insight to support coordination while maintaining local autonomy
LIFT provided a consistent view of financial vulnerability across Surrey, helping councils align on strategic priorities while allowing each authority to respond to the needs of its own communities.

4. Unlock the value of data through practical delivery tools
Insight alone is not enough. Combining LIFT with Campaign Manager enabled councils to translate data into action, running targeted campaigns without creating extra administrative burden.

5. Combine a shared strategic approach with local flexibility
County-wide campaigns such as Free School Meals and Pension Credit take up created consistency across Surrey, while districts and boroughs continued to develop their own targeted interventions for local residents.