Proactive approach to income maximisation

A North East charity is aiming to maximise people’s income in 2025 and beyond through a proactive and innovative approach.

Hartlepool Citizens Advice has been delivering a series of workshops across the town over the last few months to help raise awareness of unclaimed benefits people are entitled to.

As a result of the changes to the eligibility criteria for the Winter Fuel Payment, the charity has been working with the local authority and the MP for Hartlepool in an attempt to mitigate the impact it will have on low-income pensioners.

Pensioners across the borough were proactively sent letters inviting them to workshops for Pension Credit entitlement checks, with clients who attended provided with full energy and income maximisation checks.

Pension Credit remains one of the most unclaimed benefits in the UK, with around £2 billion going unclaimed last year. To be eligible for pension credit, people need to be above state pension age and have an income less that £218.15 a week or less than £332.95 as a joint weekly income with a partner. However, savings are taken into account. People can check their eligibility on the UK Government’s website.

The workshops run by Hartlepool Citizens Advice also support clients to access their energy accounts online, with bespoke advice about how to use a smartphone, how to create an email address, how to navigate provider websites and how to use comparison sites to get the best deals.

These workshops alone led to people’s income being increased by a collective £372,000 per year.

The charity has also been delivering workshops supporting people with planned transitions from Employment and Support Allowance to Universal Credit. Both workshops take advantage of new innovative software that has been developed to make it easier for advisers and the public to work out what they might be missing out on.

Ross Brooks, General Manager at Hartlepool Citizens Advice, said: “As part of our drive to work smarter and more efficiently, we are now using bespoke software created by Policy in Practice who work with many local authorities via their Low Income Family Tracker (LIFT) platform – a data analytics tool that identifies key drivers of poverty.

“We utilise this income maximisation software – branded to our office under licence for our SCARP energy advice team and our debt and financial inclusion teams. This software produces very comprehensive, tailored output on what clients could be claiming which can be delivered to clients in a number of formats.

“The advisers now use this tool with all clients as income maximisation is a core activity and no client will receive energy advice/assistance without an income maximisation check.”

The charity will shortly be embedding the tool into their website to enable clients to use online in the comfort of their own home before requesting support for further assistance.

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