Coronavirus (COVID-19) has made life tough for people who are scared for their health and their finances. It’s also brought huge pressure to frontline organisations who are there to help.
In this webinar we are joined by Ellie Kershaw, Tower Hamlets and Grant Bailey, Cheltenham Borough Homes to discuss how they are dealing with the current changes, and how the crisis now will affect their residents in the future.
We explore how services may need to change and how organisations can be proactive now to safeguard their residents’ wellbeing.
Review the slides to learn:
- How other organisations are helping people deal with Coronavirus
- Ideas to consider that can drive a proactive, prevention approach
- Best practice for dealing with increased demand with limited resources
3. Today’s speakers
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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
5. Agenda
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● 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
7. Cheltenham Borough Homes
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● 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
8. London Borough of Tower Hamlets
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● 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
9. 999
The past
What was your number one issue
when Coronavirus hit?
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10. Cheltenham Borough Homes
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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
11. LB Tower Hamlets
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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
12. 121212
Poll 1: What are you struggling most
with at the moment?
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14. Cheltenham Borough Homes
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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
19. Surplus earnings coming soon
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● Ask Zoe for this content - look at last webinar
20. BBC changes made due to COVID-19
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● 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
21. LB Tower Hamlets
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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
27. Cheltenham Borough Homes
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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
28. LB Tower Hamlets
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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
30. Future modelling in LIFT dashboard
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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
32. ● 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
33. 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
www.policyinpractice.co.uk