To help councils navigate the aftermath of the pandemic the government has introduced a £500 million Household Support Fund, helping vulnerable households to cover their fuel, food and utility bills. This fund joins a raft of other discretionary support measures worth over £755 million.
The support, whilst welcome, adds to an increasingly complex social security landscape. This makes it harder for councils to administer, and harder for individuals to navigate, resulting in a low take-up of much-needed money.
Some leading local authorities use their data to identify residents who are struggling or in crisis so they can accurately target discretionary funding where it is most needed.
We highlight the work being done by Sutton Council in this webinar. They have used insights from their data to identify and target support to over 3,000 households with nearly 5,000 children. They’ve also identified over £7million of unclaimed benefits to which they’ve helped their residents apply.
Listen back to hear about:
- Discretionary support available: how much, what it’s for, what challenges and opportunities it presents
- Case study of how London Borough of Sutton administers discretionary support funds
- Examples of how data is being used to target support to specific groups of people
With guest speaker Julian Clift, Welfare Benefits Advice and Support Manager, Sutton Council.
View the webinar
LIFT has revolutionised the way we work and propelled the amount of support we can offer our customers. Using LIFT, we have assisted 3,482 households which included 4,860 children. This past year we have assisted our residents to claim an additional £7 million of unclaimed benefits which helps them individually and also helps our borough.
38% of Local Authorities spent less than 95% of their allocation for Discretionary Housing Payments, which is over £11 million that could've gone to residents, but didn't. There are a small amount only spending 50% of their allocation. That's a lot of support that households are missing out on.