One in three households have lost income as a result of the pandemic, and nearly half of families with children have lost household income. The pandemic has impacted millions of people, including those who have no experience of the benefits system.
Many people are unaware of the full range of help and support available, or what they are potentially eligible for. As a result, people are missing out on around £10 billion of benefits they are entitled to claim each year.
There are times when we all need a little extra support. We are here to help your customers quickly and easily access the support available.
Better Off Calculator
Our award-winning Better Off Calculator is the best tool to help you grow the financial strength of your customers.
The calculator helps you build the financial strength of your customers without needing to be a welfare expert. The tool helps you securely and confidentially assess your customer’s unique situation to pinpoint benefits they may be eligible for, to give them the widest possible range of support. It uses your customer’s information to calculate their future income to help them plan from month to month, so they can take control of their money and become financially stronger.
Giving the best welfare guidance to help people make decisions can be a huge challenge. It’s hard to stay on top of the latest updates, have difficult conversations and treat all customers equally well.
Our calculator uses the Standard Financial Statement and provides organisations and people with a digital way to complete their budget in a format recognised across a multitude of sectors.
Our calculator covers more than Universal Credit and other well-known benefits. It also calculates eligibility for extra financial support schemes available from local authorities, utility providers and others, such as council tax support, food vouchers, free prescriptions and warm home discounts, to name a few. You can offer your customers self-serve access to the calculator whenever they want it, via your website.
Our calculator has handy built-in average cost of living data. These numbers, from Office for National Statistics’ data about similar households, can help ease tension during difficult conversations about expenditure. This allows you to objectively help customers budget well and identify ways they can reduce their expenditure.
Our calculator allows you to assess your client’s income and expenditure easily. It also gives your client the ability to share their income and expenditure with other organisations so they only need to complete it once.
Our calculator lets you model changes in your customer’s circumstances so they can see how their financial situation is going to change. This could be as a result of redundancy, reduced job hours, or changes to their family such as having a baby.
You may not be able to prevent vulnerability, but you can prevent further harm as a result of it. Our calculator enables you to go further than assessing affordability alone by giving you the ability to check if your customers are claiming all the benefits and support they’re eligible for. This income maximization, together with cost savings, means you can improve the financial strength of your customers.
Finance sector organisations use the Better Off Calculator to:
- Accurately maximise income
- Compare different scenarios
- Create a positive action plan
- Explain complex changes simply
- Identify ways to improve budgeting
- Give consistent and up-to-date guidance
- Save, store and access cases efficiently
Inspirational stories from clients who use
our Better Off Calculator
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The Better Off Calculator helps CDER Group’s customers to take control of their finances
The Better Off Calculator is offered as a self-serve facility for customers to take control of their own financial situation without the potential discomfort of discussing their circumstances face to face or via phone. The tool offers a live chat helpdesk to customers staffed by Policy in Practice experts and CDER Group’s dedicated welfare team is also on hand to offer guidance or specialist referrals where necessary.
Register for an upcoming webinar
| Title | Date | Start Time | Duration | Register |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reducing barriers to work using data led campaigns
In September 2023 the UK experienced an economic inactivity rate of 21.3% and an estimated unemployment rate of 4.3%, both of which have increased compared to previous data. Economic inactivity has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, prompting government efforts to integrate this group into the workforce. Historically, policies under Universal Credit and legacy benefits emphasised pushing people into employment through conditionality and short term measures. Today, both major political parties are exploring ways to facilitate return to work and eliminate barriers to employment. However, the government is also extending conditionality and adopting a tougher stance on sanctions for a broader range of people. Haringey is home to a young, ethnically diverse population. In June 2023, almost one fifth of those between 16 to 65 were on Universal Credit. Nearly 7% of residents over 16 were claiming unemployment related benefits, a figure above the London average of 4.7% and the 3rd highest rate of all UK councils Haringey Council wanted to find ways to overcome barriers to employment for young people and families with children and has used data to achieve success with its employment support programmes. Join this webinar to learn: - The new carrot and stick policy changes designed to break down barriers to work and reduce economic inactivity - What Haringey Council did to increase take up of free childcare for two year olds to 70% - How Haringey Council successfully helped 95 NEETs on their employment journey With guest speakers from Haringey Council | 29/11/2023 | 10:30 GMT | 1.3 hours | Register |
| Policy review of 2023 and what 2024 may hold
Join our last webinar of 2023 to hear our policy analysts review 2023's policy changes and big issues, from the ongoing cost of living and energy crises to the funding of local government and the Autumn Statement. We will highlight our policy findings from the year including our work that revealed that millions of households across the UK are missing out on £19 billion of support each year. We'll look at the role that data is playing in helping leading organisations to tackle these issues. Through case studies of different types of households we'll look at what the changes mean for families now, and what 2024 has in store. Along the way we'll share the positive impact that organisations we work with are having, and give practical solutions that others can adopt. | 6/12/2023 | 10:30 GMT | 1.3 hours | Register |
| How the debt sector is connecting people to support | 31/1/2024 | 10:30 GMT | 1.3 hours | Register |