Coronavirus: stories from the front line

Coronavirus: stories from
the front line
Wednesday 20 May
Policy in Practice
webinar

Housekeeping
www.policyinpractice.co.uk
● Audio check
● Please ask questions
● Poll and a survey
● Aim to finish by 11:30
● Slides and recording will follow

Today’s speakers
Grant Bailey
Benefit and Money
Advice Team
Leader
Cheltenham
Borough Homes
Janet Harkin
Head of Marketing
Policy in Practice
Ellie Kershaw
Tackling Poverty
Programme
Delivery Manager
LB Tower Hamlets
Jade Alsop
Commercial
Director
Policy in Practice

Give the best support
you can to help people
on their way
policy
software
analytics

Agenda
www.policyinpractice.co.uk/coronavirus
● What the past and present looks like for two organisations and their
customers
● A look at how our software is helping
● What challenges our two organisations are facing in the future, and how
they’re going to tackle them
● Questions and answers

666
Introduction to our speakers

Cheltenham Borough Homes
● Grant Bailey, Benefit and Money Advice Team Leader, Cheltenham Borough
Homes
● ALMO responsible for the management and maintenance of Cheltenham
Borough Council’s housing stock and housing and homeless service
● 5,034 homes made up of 3,950 general needs, 493 sheltered and 482
leasehold properties plus 109 of our own stock
● Won awards for work tackling illegal money lending
● Use the BBC to help support tenants and help with difficult conversations

London Borough of Tower Hamlets
● Ellie Kershaw, Tackling Poverty Programme Delivery Manager, LB Tower
Hamlets
● 48,000 households live in poverty in Tower Hamlets (2 in 5 households)
● 50% of the borough’s older residents live in income deprived households, the
highest rate of pensioner poverty in England
● 78% of Bangladeshi households claim Council Tax Reduction compared to
average of 33% for other households
● 11,950 residents (62% of all working age residents) getting out of work
benefits get ESA
● 31% of children in the borough live in families living below the poverty line
● Use the BBC to help DHP and applications for UC (Outreach team)
● Use the LIFT Dashboard to identify vulnerability and support strategic activity

999
The past
What was your number one issue
when Coronavirus hit?

Issues
● Getting food and medicine to vulnerable tenants quickly
● Health and availability of CBH staff
● Previously structured week changed completely; shift from face to face to
online and phone support
What we did
● New internal infrastructure helped (good timing)
● Staff redeployed (training needed)
● Cemented good partnership working with council and JCP

LB Tower Hamlets
Issues
● Identifying most vulnerable people
● Getting food and money to people
● ‘Everybody in’ focus on getting rough sleepers off the streets
What we did
● Used analysis from LIFT to identify key groups
● Set up self isolation & vol sec food hubs, working with partners
● Set up basic triage. Created self isolation form and made it available on
website or via contact centre
● Local businesses, via our economic development team, let us know people in
difficulty and also asked for our help to fill new vacancies
● Staff use Benefit and Budgeting Calculator

121212
Poll 1: What are you struggling most
with at the moment?

131313
The present
What are you struggling with most at
the moment?

Issues
● Can’t access our Help2 pot or petty cash so can’t charge electricity fobs
● Concern about the hidden issues, people we would’ve seen at the Thursday
community centre drop in
● New levels of anxiety: people are worried about their finances and jobs,
leading to higher demand for our services
● Concerned about people turning to illegal money lenders
Solutions that are helping
● Gloucester Suicide Prevention Partnership; Vulnerable and Complex Needs
Group (DWP)
● Benefit and Budgeting Calculator:
○ Helps people understand their income and support available
○ Helps us to spot and then support potential loan shark victims

Understand a change in earnings

Visualise outgoings (1)

Visualise outgoings (2)

Self-serve Benefits and Budgeting
Calculator

Surplus earnings coming soon
● Ask Zoe for this content - look at last webinar

BBC changes made due to COVID-19
● Results for working-age users now
show Universal Credit by default
● Contributory benefits default to Yes
● Change to tax credit questions
● The benefit cap 'grace period'
● Minimum Income Floor section for
advisors
● Simplified for pensioners

LB Tower Hamlets
Issues
● Meeting the demand for food hubs (£30k / week on food, staff £10k / week)
● Supporting the most vulnerable, eg food insecurity
● Digital literacy more important than ever (internal and external)
● What will the impact be on our residents and our local businesses?
● More vulnerable households will find it harder to find employment
Solutions that are helping
● Changed criteria for Residents Support Scheme (100% extra in 6 weeks)
● Opened 2nd food hub; working with 3rd sector partners better
● Employment support services
● Identifying vulnerable households:
○ Health data via shield list will help us identify vulnerable, via LIFT
○ Self declared need for debt advice helps us prioritise, via LIFT
○ Monthly data analysis, via LIFT, to capture people early

1. Focus on one cohort

2. Identify to street level

3. Identify to household level

4. Understand a household’s journey

262626
The future
What does the future look like for your
services?

Issues we’ve identified
● Higher case load (and more complicated) will take longer to clear
● Concern re space at local JCP (used to take 2 desks / week to give advice)
● Concern re increase in illegal money lending activity
Solutions that will help
● Committed and determined team
● Good lessons learned
● Build on and ramp up previous success tackling loan sharks
● Benefit and Budgeting Calculator
What we’ll want to keep
● Opportunity for screens in JCP and hubs to do online advice calls
● Self Service Benefit and Budgeting Calculator on our website

LB Tower Hamlets
Issues we’ve identified
● Demand for services: existing and newly vulnerable, homelessness spike
● Short term vulnerability: reduced hours, furlough, self employment
● Longer term issues: business closures, job loss, employment support, once
COVID-19 measures end, sustained drop in council income
● Increased Illegal Money Lending activity
Solutions that will help
● Benefit and Budgeting Calculator
● Dedicated Tackling Poverty Team using LIFT Dashboard
● Partnerships including strong voluntary sector
What we’ll want to keep
● Good work with voluntary sector partners
● Tracking what’s happening with our low income households over time
● Future modelling

5. Track outcomes over time

Future modelling in LIFT dashboard
The future is uncertain but projections help us to see implications for demand for
council support and services, and indebtedness.
We’ve changed our policy modelling due to COVID-19. We have two approaches:
1. What's happening to current cohort?
2. What’s the new cohort of households going to be?
This can help you to:
● Identify people you can help back to financial independence quicker
● Ensure your service is designed around need and impact

313131
Questions and answers

● For up to date information on the welfare support available see
www.policyinpractice.co.uk/your-income-and-coronavirus-covid-19/
● Follow up email with webinar recording and slides, with links
● Short survey to follow
● Next webinars:
○ Is your post COVID-19 Council Tax Support Scheme sustainable? on
Wed 3 June at 10:30
○ How data analytics helps councils look to recovery on
Wed 17 June at 10:30
○ How to simplify the complexity of surplus earnings on
Wed 1 July at 10:30
Practical tools that can help
www.policyinpractice.co.uk/events

333333
Thank you
Grant Bailey, Cheltenham Borough Homes
Ellie Kershaw, LB Tower Hamlets
Jade Alsop, Janet Harkin, Policy in Practice
Policy in Practice
hello@policyinpractice.co.uk
0330 088 9242

Coronavirus: stories from the front line

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Semelhante a Coronavirus: stories from the front line

Semelhante a Coronavirus: stories from the front line (20)

Mais de Policy in Practice

Mais de Policy in Practice (15)

Último

Último (20)

Coronavirus: stories from the front line