London Borough of Enfield’s staff adapted very well to working from home whilst dealing with huge demand for support from people new to the benefits system. At the same time they successfully delivered the many temporary Coronavirus supports brought in by the government.
London Borough of Enfield’s good news story from 2020
“Our good news story this year is how adaptable our staff have been working on the housing benefits team and our Council Tax Scheme. We are so proud of how our team has transitioned to working from home, dealing with all the many changes and challenges this year has thrown their way. We have seen huge increases in Universal Credit claims and the government grants that have been provided to help with these changes have been introduced at such a fast pace; our team has responded brilliantly. Policy in Practice has helped us to analyse the impact that the increase in Universal Credit claims has had on our Council Tax Scheme caseload in terms of volume, cost and fairness.“
Sally Sanders, Head of Financial Assessment, London Borough of Enfield
We purchased the LIFT platform because we were faced with a need to reduce poverty and prevent homelessness through targeted interventions; it was the best tool out there to help us with this.
In terms of the Council Tax Reduction Scheme Modelling, we needed to know what our caseload was telling us about our current scheme, and whether it was equitable and fair. To get the changes agreed, we needed analysis to articulate the proposed changes with evidence.
COVID-19 has dramatically added to our challenges. We have seen a huge increase in Universal Credit claims and the very practical challenges of having to change our way of work.
Policy in Practice has a good reputation for doing a deep dive into the data we provide, providing a more comprehensive analysis with meaningful reason. They can also draw on other data sets. As other local authorities also provide their data as part of the Low-Income Londoners project it’s useful to see how your own data and related analysis is benchmarked against other authorities.
With the LIFT platform, we a started pension credit campaign and have already got 20% of our target audience (99 of the 488) on to pension credit as a result of sending a letter out. We expect to do other LIFT campaigns to target reducing homelessness in the coming months.
The CTRS Modelling has greatly helped us to explain proposals to change, to be looked at for 2022/2023.
Policy in Practice can provide analysis and information to help local authorities target specific interventions such as under-claimed benefits or showing you which of your residents are most at risk of being made homeless.
I wish we had known how many households are under-claiming benefits their eligible for from our Housing Benefits and Council Tax Scheme data, and what this is worth to our residents. It would also have been great to know the number of households affected by the benefit cap on Universal Credit.
Through benchmarking we can see that Enfield has unique challenges, often having a higher impact from various reforms and higher associated costs to consider. The work with Policy in Practice has helped to shine a light on these differences which is helping us to address this via better use of data analysis and targeting.
We set up a Welfare Advice and Debt Support team on 20 March 2020. The aim for the team was to maximise income and reduce council debts and homelessness for the most vulnerable residents in the borough. The team does this by linking with referral agencies and other teams who refer clients their way, thereby working in partnership to increase benefit take-up and reduce debts for Enfield’s residents.
People whose employment and pay were also affected by COVID-19 were also referred to this team for support. Almost 2,000 referrals have been made to the team since 20 March, with some amazing outcomes. This team has executed the pension credit take up campaign with the use of the LIFT platform data. The team is expanding in 2021 to do more targeted work and to help customers claim the benefits they are entitled to.
“Enfield has shared it’s benefit data with Policy in Practice since 2017 as part of the Low Income Londoners project where free benchmarking with other London Boroughs was provided to highlight differences between boroughs. It gave us an idea of what that data is telling us, how we can explore it further and how we can make better use of that data.
The team are always helpful and willing to do what they can to help us find the best solutions to the challenges that are posed or are identified in the data provided. Enfield has purchased the LIFT platform to target residents who should be receiving certain benefits, and to help prevent homelessness. The team at Policy in Practice is always willing to meet and speak to us to get the most out of this application. We have also commissioned Policy in Practice to look at our Council Tax Support scheme and research the impact of welfare reforms on residents so we can understand our customers better for a more effective approach. The report and level of detail provided, including visuals, has helped us to provide evidence when making proposals.“
Sally Sanders, Head of Financial Assessment, London Borough of Enfield