The most underclaimed benefits and how to drive take up

The most underclaimed
benefits, and how to
drive take up
Wednesday 26 February
Policy in Practice
webinar

Housekeeping
www.policyinpractice.co.uk
● Audio check
● Please ask questions
● Polls and a survey
● Aim to finish by 12:00

Today’s speakers
Louise Murphy
Policy & Data Analyst
Policy in Practice
Nick Harvey
Training Officer
Folkestone & Hythe
Council
Jane Worrell
Revenues & Benefits
Operational Manager
Folkestone & Hythe
Council
George Sanderson
Policy & Data Analyst
Policy in Practice

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Agenda
● Which income-related benefits are most underclaimed?
● Focus on Healthy Start Vouchers to understand need and take up
● Folkestone and Hythe’s work to drive up pension credit and tax credit claims
● Understanding the ROI of intervention campaigns so you know what works
● How software can help to identify vulnerability, target support and track
change

Background
● Poverty in the UK
○ In-work poverty is on the rise, from 10% of workers in 1997/98 to 13%
now
○ Working single parents have seen the fastest rise in poverty: 3 in 10 are
now in poverty
○ Although pensioners are less likely to be in poverty than children or
working-age adults, pensioner poverty rates are rising
● Local Housing Allowance cap
○ HB doesn’t cover the rent of most private sector tenants who get it
○ The gap between LHA and rent is proven to drive homelessness
○ For every 1,000 households experiencing a shortfall between their LHA rate
and rent, 44 households will require temporary accommodation
● Moving to Universal Credit
○ 28% of households (1.3 million families) who will move onto Universal
Credit are eligible for a lower award than under legacy benefits

Benefit freeze: value of many benefits
fallen by 6% since 2013
Source: UK Poverty 2019/20: social security. JRF

The shape of our social security system
● 20 million people were claiming
DWP benefits at August 2019,
around 60% are pension age
● UC and the DWP benefits it
replaces (JSA, ESA, IS and HB)
made up just 25% of DWP welfare
spending
● Given the costs of UC roll-out and
the increasing costs of disability
benefits, it seems unlikely that the
amount of benefits people can get
will increase by much Source: DWP benefits statistics
● Encouraging the take-up of unclaimed benefits is one tangible way that
local authorities can act

£10 billion benefits are unclaimed

Healthy Start Vouchers
● Additional unclaimed benefits
include:
○ Healthy Start Vouchers
○ Free NHS Prescriptions
○ Warm Homes Discount
● 46% of eligible households are
missing out on Healthy Start
vouchers
● Over 130,000 households were
not accessing £28.6m of free
fruit, vegetables and milk

Benefit take-up
● Barriers to take-up
○ Difficult claim process, lack of awareness
○ ‘Digital by Default’
○ Households not currently claiming any benefits are missing from
administrative datasets - most large scale analysis relies on survey data
○ Lack of UC data
● Opportunities
○ HB and CTS data can be used to target households who are
underclaiming
○ UC is likely to increase take-up rates by merging in-work and out-of-
work support
○ UC notice can be used to trigger a CTS claim

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Poll 1: How do you encourage benefit
take up now?

161616
Over to Jane Worrell and Nick
Harvey, Folkestone & Hythe Council

A bit about F&H DC
• Approximately 52,000 dwellings
• Approximately 8,000 housing benefit claimants
• Approximately 60/40 working age to pension age
• 2nd highest deprivation in Kent
• LIFT Dashboard received in July 2019
• Urgency for first campaign
• Cut off for Mixed Aged Pension Credits on 15th August 2019

Mixed Aged Couples
• 98 households identified
• Used LIFT to prioritise financial vulnerability:
• in crisis
• at risk
• struggling
• Reduced timeframe. No mail shot. 3 Benefit personnel calling
• Actions: Claim reviewed: 3 month delay with info
• 1st call: explained why calling, encouraged to apply online via
direct.gov. Left message if possible
• 2nd chaser call

Results
• 98 households
• 51 claiming Pension Credits
• 26 from phone calls did not want to claim, uncontactable or change
in circumstances and were nil-entitled
• 17 said they were going to try to claim but no PCs on claim
• 4 left message on phones
• 51 households claiming PC’s at £255.25pw is £676k annually
• Great result:
• At risk household, old council tax debt cleared and paid to date
for 2019/20

Other campaigns
• Discretionary Housing Payments
• Lone parents: 96
• Couples with children: 44
• Couples with no children: 32
• Singles: 44
• Not receiving Council Tax Reduction
• All types: 49
• Eligible for Severe Disability Premium
• All types: 8

Our approach
• Dedicated resource
• Funding allowed us to recruit one officer
• Requirement to understand claim fully first
• Started phoning them all
• Way we approached that was crucial
• Use of Benefit and Budgeting Calculator and help completing
forms
• Information emails created
• Realised many unaware of DHP
• Added bonus
• Some fraud cases spotted!

Vulnerability
• Change in culture
• Change of wording on recovery notices
• Change in approach
• Identifying vulnerable customers
• Those who just need a different method of communication
• Those who need more support
• Referral to welfare officers
• Signposting
• New list created
• Encouraging feedback from customers

What’s next for us
• Pension credits
• Will target those who may be eligible for free TV licence first: 756
cases
• Will be passed to dedicated resource
• Initial phone call
• Email to advise PC available
• Letter
• If unusual circumstances are identified we may look to visit

272727
Poll 2: What's your biggest challenge
when implementing take up activity?

Identify Engage Track
People who need your
support the most
Your residents with
targeted support
The impact of policy
and effectiveness of
interventions

Using a benefits calculator with eligibility built in

Successful take up campaigns
● 969 households
contacted, 359
households signed
up to Healthy Start
● Increased income to
the houses by over
£70,500
● Use the calculator to
maximize client
income
● Identified £200,000
of unclaimed SDP
● Increase in early
interventions through
LIFT usage
● Identified up to £20m
in unclaimed benefits
● Reduced reliance on
foodbanks

Calculating return on investment
Cohort size
Number of people identified as potentially eligible
2,817
Campaign size
Number of people the council tried to engage (i.e. contact details held)
2,781
Engagement
Number of people responding positively to the council
544
Take up
Number of people with a successful outcome
181
Return on investment
Amount saved (£463/month*12 months*181 take-up cases)
£1,017,763

Download now:
● LIFT flyer
● Benefit and Budgeting Calculator flyer
● Greenwich, Croydon, Guinness case studies
Follow up email with webinar recording and slides, with links
Short survey to follow the end of the webinar:
● We value your feedback
● Ask further questions
● Find out more about LIFT and BBC
● Sign up for our next webinar on tackling illegal money lending with Cheltenham
Borough Homes (Wed 25 March)
● Sign up for our Regional Data Analysis Forum in Leeds on Tues 31 March
Next steps

414141
Thank you
Jane Worrell
Revenues & Benefits Operational Manager
Nick Harvey
Training Officer
Folkestone & Hythe Council
Louise Murphy and George Sanderson
Policy in Practice
hello@policyinpractice.co.uk
0330 088 9242

The most underclaimed benefits and how to drive take up

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