Councils are struggling to reach households hit by the cost of living crisis due to the Government’s failure to share its data with local authorities.
The data that councils have does not currently include the full range of people on Universal Credit (UC).
Policy in Practice, a social policy software and analytics firm that works with local authorities using benefits administration data, is among those to have highlighted the data ‘blind spot’.
Greenwich LBC, which has used data to maximise benefit eligibility, previously wrote to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about the importance of making the full range of UC data available to councils so they can help people get the support they need.
Policy in Practice founder Deven Ghelani said the pandemic had failed to ‘kick the DWP into gear’.
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