How Walsall Council combined data and behavioural science to alleviate poverty and drive benefit uptake

Walsall Council is a Metropolitan Borough Council ranked within the 10% most deprived local authorities in England. More than half of its residents live in areas among the 20% most deprived nationally. Approximately 60% of children under 16 live in these high-deprivation areas, with around one third in the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods. They needed household-level insight to respond proactively to welfare reform, increase benefit uptake, and recover Council Tax debt more effectively.

The council’s We Are Walsall 2040 strategy sets out a direct commitment to tackling deprivation, closing the child poverty gap, and building community financial resilience across all neighbourhoods. Delivering on that ambition requires more than policy intent. It demands precise, timely, data-informed action.

Walsall Council started using the Low Income Family Tracker (LIFT) from Policy in Practice in 2024, working in close partnership with Citizens Advice Sandwell and Walsall to deliver targeted, data-driven campaigns, informed by behavioural science, across three key areas: the removal of the Two-Child Limit, Pension Credit, and Attendance Allowance.

This impactful collaboration has made the partnership a finalist for ‘Excellence in Partnership Working’ at the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation Performance Awards.

 Impact:

• £13.5m in lifetime value generated for residents through benefit uptake campaigns
• £932,794 in annual value and £7,084,416 in lifetime value delivered through the 2024 Pension Credit campaign alone
• Proactive outreach ahead of the Two-Child Limit removal received by 805 households £5,000 in Council Tax debt recovered

Accurate and timely identification

When the government announced in November 2025 that the Two-Child Limit would be removed on 6 April 2026, Walsall – like many other local authorities across the country – faced an urgent question: which households would actually benefit, and which would be partially or fully offset by the Benefit Cap or Universal Credit interactions?

Using LIFT data, the teams identified the families with the most to gain from timely, accurate support ahead of the change: 5,755 households with children carrying £4.2m of debt.

A bespoke approach

Policy in Practice’s policy experts undertook bespoke analysis to identify the 805 households in Walsall that would be positively affected by the Two-Child Limit removal and were also in debt. Critically, this analysis distinguished households that would see a genuine income increase from those whose gains would be offset by the Benefit Cap or Universal Credit interactions.

Ahead of the April 2026 change, the council contacted all 805 affected households to help them budget and plan the transition. By outlining exactly how their additional income would impact current benefits, the council ensured residents received clear, authoritative guidance early on.

Working in partnership with Citizens Advice Sandwell and Walsall, the council also deployed the CASSIE Mobile Advice Bus into the three highest-need wards (Bloxwich, Brownhills, and Bentley), bringing in-person, specialist advice directly into communities and removing the access barriers that often prevent the most vulnerable residents from seeking support.

The results

• 805 households received proactive outreach letters ahead of the April 2026 policy change
• 26 residents received face-to-face support through the CASSIE Mobile Advice Unit: 12 in Bloxwich, 8 in Brownhills, and 6 in Bentley
• The bespoke Two-Child Limit analysis has since been built as a permanent new filter within LIFT, making this analytical capability available to all local authority clients.

Pension Credit is one of the most underclaimed benefits in the country. In Walsall, eligible older residents were missing out on significant income. Attendance Allowance also has consistently low uptake with many residents unaware that they were eligible. The council knew they needed to proactively identify and reach them. The challenge was to move beyond awareness-raising and run a precisely targeted, behaviourally informed campaign that would drive real uptake. The council formulated a targeted approach to identify and reach this cohort before financial pressure compounded existing vulnerability.

Solution

Using LIFT, the council identified households likely to be eligible for Pension Credit but not claiming it. They also identified 1,383 households likely to be eligible for Attendance Allowance. Behaviourally framed, personalised letters were then sent to targeted households. These were designed to highlight the benefit upfront, used loss aversion to motivate action, and included a clear call to action with signposting to support.

Impact

The campaign ran across two phases, beginning in 2024 and continuing into 2025.

2024 campaign

• £932,794 in total annual value delivered to residents
• £7,084,416 in estimated lifetime value

2025 campaign

• £371,101 in total annual value delivered to residents
• £3,439,184 in estimated lifetime value

The Attendance Allowance uptake campaign generated £529,136 in total annual value and an estimated lifetime value of £3,003,385 for 113 Walsall households.

This partnership shows what is possible when data, policy expertise and community presence work together.

• Proactive outreach requires household-level data. Generic approaches cannot distinguish between households that will benefit from welfare reform changes and those who will be negatively impacted by them. Bespoke analysis, like the Two-Child Limit filter now built into LIFT, makes targeted, accurate outreach possible.
• A targeted, behaviour-informed approach improves engagement: Redesigning letters using loss aversion, simplified language, and clear calls to action meaningfully improved benefit take-up rates.
• Place-based delivery reaches those who cannot self-refer. Taking advice into high-need wards through a mobile unit removed the access barriers that prevented the most vulnerable residents from engaging with available support.
• Cross-sector partnership multiplies impact. The collaboration between Walsall Council, Policy in Practice and Local Citizens Advice demonstrated that data, policy expertise, and community trust, combined, achieved outcomes none of the three partners could have reached independently.
• Integrating benefits and housing data enables a more holistic response. LIFT provided this information in one single dashboard, allowing the teams to gather insights at a glance and reach out residents quickly and efficiently.

Walsall will continue their work with the LIFT community to bring practical thought leadership and a behavioural science approach to other councils navigating similar challenges.