We want to move beyond sticking plaster solutions. If we can promote work and independence by understanding who’s impacted by welfare reforms we’ll have more resources available for those who still need our support.
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 brings the messages to life and helps with that decision making.
Sally Sanders, Enfield Council
I can’t see whether the people being clobbered by reductions in council tax support or under-occupation are the same people that have been clobbered by other reforms.
We want to move beyond sticking plaster solutions. If we can promote work and independence by understanding who’s impacted by welfare reforms we’ll have more resources available for those who still need our support.
We have recently purchased the discretionary housing payment module from Policy in Practice. We will be expecting our housing and voluntary sector partners to use the calculator when they make the DHP applications. That’s going to really speed up our decision making and be really useful to those partners because they will be able to give people a really good idea of whether they are likely to get something from us.
The high-level, astonishing figures in the Policy Impact Analysis report allowed us to highlight the need for continued welfare resources to elected members and other local decision-makers.
We noticed that we had a fair amount of Discretionary Housing Payment budget left and we used LIFT to target those who should be eligible for a DHP. In November we had 26 applications for DHP with 22 awarded and in December we had 72 applications and 62 awards. So our numbers reflect that the campaign did have an effect with maximizing people’s income.
Nick Harvey, Folkestone and Hythe District Council
We’ve had a LIFT Dashboard for a year and it’s given us the opportunity to be even more specific with the take up work we’re doing and much smarter in using our resources. Now we’re targeting people who we’re much more confident are likely to be missing out on benefits. In the current climate of having to prioritise resources it’s important to show the results we can get and the impact we can make.
The Policy in Practice LIFT Dashboard has allowed us to draw together previously disparate databases into one easily accessible platform. It maps our data against future predicted changes in inflation of household goods and predicted welfare changes and gives the team an easily accessible platform to see what residents’ situations are.
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.
Working with Policy in Practice, we have developed the LIFT Dashboard to help us build on our early intervention and prevention approaches enabling proactive targeting that makes a real difference for our residents going through hard times.
