Low Income Family Tracker
Build their financial resilience, reduce your costs
Using LIFT, our local authority clients have identified £673 million for over 1 million people in the past year
Why local authorities use LIFT
With household debt rising and more than £24 billion in support going unclaimed each year, local authorities need better ways to identify and support residents in financial hardship. LIFT helps councils target interventions where they will have the greatest impact, increasing household income, reducing debt and preventing problems from escalating.
Increase household income
Identify households missing out on benefits, grants and social tariffs, including Pension Credit, Universal Credit, Attendance Allowance, Free School Meals, Healthy Start and childcare support.
Support ethical debt collection
Combine debt insights, income maximisation and tailored support to improve collection rates, reduce debt owed to the council and prevent debt from accruing in the first place.
Prevent homelessness
Use indicators such as debt, income shortfall, welfare reform and overcrowding to identify households at risk of homelessness and intervene early.
Identify households who may be able to move on from temporary accommodation and any barriers to them moving to sustainable long term accommodation.
Prioritise discretionary support
Target discretionary funding, including the Crisis and Resilience Fund and housing payments, using measures of financial hardship, debt and homelessness risk to maximise impact.
Measure
impact
Track the outcomes of interventions over time, demonstrating economic and fiscal impact while identifying opportunities to reduce demand across council services.
Increase social tariff take-up
Identify households eligible for energy, water and other utility social tariffs, as well as debt relief, to increase take-up and reduce financial pressure.
Support residents into work
Identify households most likely to benefit from employment support, including those not in education, employment or training (NEET), and target interventions that improve outcomes and increase participation.
Target support by place
Combine household-level data with local insights to identify need, understand local challenges and target support where it will have the greatest impact.
Use a searchable, monthly refreshed dataset to identify and target specific cohorts, from ward-level trends to individual and household circumstances.
Popular features
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After 2 years one LIFT client saw
money in the pocket of vulnerable residents
debt recovered for the council
return on investment for every £1 spent
How East Riding of Yorkshire Council grew the income of 15,700 households by nearly £13 millionIdentify vulnerability
Use around 300 policy and data filters to identify households most likely to need support and ensure resources are directed where they will have the most impact.
“Triaging beyond a resident’s presenting need is a real art. Proactive outreach is only as good as the data you have, and understanding when people are ready to work requires time, effort and access to the right support around them.”
Deliver support
Turn insight into action by reaching the right residents, delivering timely support and helping them access everything they are eligible for.
"Using LIFT has enabled us to better target our resources and work closely with partners like Citizens Advice and Rights Fife. The data allows us to make fair, informed decisions on debt recovery and identify households at risk early, all underpinned by robust legal oversight to ensure we are acting within our powers."
Reach residents
Contact eligible households quickly and at scale with Campaign Manager, turning insight into timely action.
"Like many local authorities, we've used the Low Income Family Tracker now for three years to run data campaigns and proactive outreach and automation with our residents. That's brought in just under £8 million in annual benefits to households locally and over £30 million in lifetime benefits. Our absolute gold standard, where there is a legal gateway to allow it, is automation, because that means our residents have to take no action at all to receive the support they're eligible for. We've done that for free school meals and for Thames Water social tariffs."
Measure impact
Measure, evidence and communicate the impact you're delivering for residents.
“LIFT is invaluable. We can get so much data from it that we can provide to Members who may have concerns within their ward and it’s the baseline start for all of our campaigns.”
Campaign and Payments Manager
move from knowing who needs support to reaching residents with targeted outreach, payments and interventions, quickly, at scale and without extra administration.
Use LIFT insight to identify households who may be eligible for specific support or to create your own targeted groups
Use simple templates to create letters or SMS messages that feel personal and relevant to each household
Send campaigns or issue payments automatically, saving staff time while ensuring residents receive timely support and accurate information.
Automatically track outreach, payments and outcomes to evidence the impact of every intervention.
Frequently asked questions
Client case studies
See all case studies
Denbighshire County Council unlocks over £2 million for residents in 8 months using data
How Surrey uses shared data and co-ordinated delivery to support residents across the county
How Reigate & Banstead secured almost £3.4m for residents by automating admin
Proactive income maximisation: eliminating cash shortfalls through data led HSF delivery in Islington
Bracknell Forest’s journey from tackling homelessness to benefit take up and arrears recovery using data
From data to doorsteps: How Plymouth allocated discretionary support to families in 2025
Policy in Practice helps councils allocate £18.5 million in Household Support Funds
How Adur and Worthing used LIFT to build stronger community partnerships
Gravesham Borough Council uses LIFT to unlock £572,000 in water bill savings for vulnerable households through Southern Water partnership
How Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council helped over 200 residents into work or training
How targeted Discretionary Housing Payments reduced temporary accommodations at Redbridge Council
Richmond and Wandsworth Councils leverage data to identify over 3,500 low income families eligible for energy support packages
Three London boroughs tackle child hunger by auto enrolment of 1,500 students in Free School Meals
South Norfolk and Broadland Council optimises discretionary support allocation and debt recovery through data analysis
How data made London’s pensioners better off by over £8 million a year
How East Riding of Yorkshire Council grew the income of 15,700 households by nearly £13 million
Luton Council secures £4.6 million for older people by boosting Pension Credit take up by 70%
Islington Council secures over £1 million for pensioners in successful Pension Credit take up campaign
How data led take up campaigns could help the DWP allocate £1.7 billion in unclaimed Pension Credit
Powerful alone, even better together
We built the award winning Better Off platform to close the £24 billion unclaimed support gap we identified. It makes it easy for you to build the income of your customers and reduce your costs
Better Off Calculator
A smart, easy calculator to help you maximise your customer’s income, increase engagement and save time and resources
Multi Agency Safeguarding Tracker
Software to help safeguarding professionals securely share headline data and make more informed safeguarding decisions
Policy analysis
Get independent essential expert social policy modelling and analysis to help you make better data evidenced decisions
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