Agenda item

Briefing Note of the Director of Finance and Resources

Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee received a briefing note of the Director of Finance and Resources that set out the activities undertaken by the Council to maximise the take up of financial support for Coventry residents. Councillor R Brown, Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources had been invited to the meeting for this item but was unable to attend.

The Council was directly responsible for the provision of various forms of financial assistance to residents which included:

•  Council Tax Support – means tested support which could reduce council tax payments for working-aged people by 80 per cent and by 100 per cent for people of pension age.

•  Discretionary Housing Payments - a Government scheme administered and partly funded by the Council that provided financial assistance to support low-income households with the cost of housing.

•  Housing Benefit – a means tested statutory benefit for people of pension age and for people of working age who resided in temporary or supported accommodation.

•  Household Support Fund – a Government funded scheme to provide emergency financial support to assist with the costs of utilities, essential household goods and food.

•  Community Support Grants – a Council funded programme of assistance to support people with the cost of goods to assist them in setting up a new home.

•  Administration of Free school meals.

The Council also provided advice, signposting and various resources to support benefit take-up and income maximisation. Council officers were active members of various multi-agency anti-poverty forums including the Poverty Alliance and the Coventry Inclusion Forum.

In response to the COVID pandemic and the subsequent cost of living crisis, the Council worked collaboratively with third sector partners to establish a single, central online resource for people looking for financial and wellbeing support. The resource covered a range of themes from benefits take-up to help with utility bills, from specialist money advice signposting to credit unions and, clothing and employment. The Council’s website included an intuitive and interactive benefits calculator which allowed residents to identify types of support. The Council also employed two Welfare Benefits Advisors who undertook reactive and proactive income maximisation work with customers.

Council tax support:

·  Nearly 24,000 Coventry households benefitted from council tax support at an annual cost to the Council of £28million.

·  Support was recognised to be one of the most underclaimed benefits: people weren’t aware that they could get help with their council tax payments; people didn’t prioritise claiming; residents didn’t notice any  practical consequences if they didn’t make council tax payments - people in this circumstance often had a range of debts and council tax liability was not a priority for them.

·  Underclaiming of council tax support had become an increasing problem with the migration of housing benefit to Universal Credit for people of working age - people would claim Universal Credit but neglect to or fail to realise they could, claim council tax support.

·  The Council had established a proactive approach to awarding council tax support using the minimum level of information to make an award of council tax support even where the customer had not made a formal application, including using information provided by the Department for Work and Pensions.

·  The Council used a number of methods to publicise council tax support, including articles in Your Coventry, and literature with annual council tax bills.

·  The Council’s debt recovery team worked closely with colleagues in the Benefits Teams to identify and refer debtors who may have an entitlement to council tax support.

·  Increasing the take-up of the benefit would ultimately increase cost to the Council by way of reduced council tax receipts. However, channelling support to those that needed it most, had wider social benefits for the city and potentially reduced the risk of more costly interventions for those households in the future.

Wider Income Maximisation:

·  The Council used software to profile Coventry’s most financially vulnerable residents and proactively target take-up and support. The Low-Income Family Tracker (LIFT) product assisted in working with third sector partners to identify residents who may not be receiving all of the support to which they were entitled.

Through the LIFT programme, the Council and partners had been able to:

·  Proactively award Free School Meals through an opt-out campaign, awarding to households who had otherwise not actively claimed themselves - in 2024/25, this resulted in Free School Meals awards to an additional 752 children and an additional £0.975 million pupil premium for Coventry schools, and in 2025/26, an additional 478 children had been awarded Free School Meals and additional pupil premium income of £0.64 million.

·  Identify retrospective eligibility for Severe Disability Premium for 25 households, resulting in additional housing benefit and council tax support entitlement of £93,000 for those households.

·  Promote Pension Credit take-up with an additional 79 customers in receipt of Pension Credit as a result. Whilst the Council did not administer pension credit, the Communications Team promoted the take up of a range of benefits and ran a publicity campaign during national Pension Credit Week of Action. As part of this campaign the Council also targeted communication at younger generations who may know or support someone of pension age.

·  Partner with Central England Law Centre to get specialist support for people who were subject to the national benefit cap.

·  Raise awareness of the Holiday Activities and Food programme by including information about this on Free School Meals letters.

·  Raise awareness of the Healthy Start Programme by text messaging 16,000 households in receipt of Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support.

As part of the wider digital agenda, work was ongoing to look at opportunities to join up financial support streams across the Council so that customers weren’t asked to claim multiple times. The workstream would look at single points of access for customers to access a range of different types of support, could be created. It would also look at how data was used across the organisation to better identify and channel support to the right people.

In considering the briefing note, the Committee asked questions and received responses on matters in the following areas:

·  The Education Service be consulted on the impact on schools’ budgets in respect of universal free-school meals for infant age children and parents not actively having to register

·  Following the Government’s initial decision that only those in receipt of Pension Credit could claim the winter fuel allowance, there was promotional campaign both locally and nationally on the issue resulting in many new claimants.

·  Claiming DWP pension credit was an issue for some who were uncomfortable with the concept of claiming benefits

·  Those that claimed pension credit also made applications for additional Council benefits however, there was no evidence to quantify an increase in other applications following the pension credit campaign

·  The Government’s recent change meant that many more were eligible the winter fuel allowance, including those not on Pension credit

·  A guide for Elected Members on the financial support available to residents and where to sign-post them for assistance, would be useful

Members of the Committee agreed that benefits data on the caseloads for each service provided be circulated to the Committee. They also agreed that a Briefing Note on the impact on schools’ budgets in respect of free-school meals for infant age children, be added to the work programme for Education and Skills Scrutiny Board (2).

RESOLVED that the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee:

1)  Notes the actions taken to promote benefit take-up.

2)  Agrees that Cabinet Member for Strategic Finance and Resources be requested to agree to the provision of a guide for Elected Members on the financial support available to residents and where to sign-post them for assistance.