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Date

Start Time

Duration

Test In recent years, Council Tax arrears in England have hit a record £6 billion.

As we move into 2026, the design of local Council Tax Reduction (CTR) schemes remains one of the most powerful levers councils have to protect low income residents from falling into arrears.

Join us at this webinar to explore practical solutions focused on:

• Trends in council tax support schemes: Preparing for LGR and the April budget changes
• Streamlined collection: Aligning CTR scheme design to make it simple to administer, and combine this with flexible, effective and sustainable debt management practices
• Local government reorganisation: Best practices to harmonise disparate schemes and be ready for the transition
• Efficiency through automation: How South Norfolk & Broadland councils are working to increase take-up while reducing the administrative burden of Universal Credit fluctuations through income-banded schemes and automated modelling

The policy landscape is shifting rapidly. The government’s new Child Poverty Strategy introduces statutory requirements for councils to ensure their schemes actively reduce inequality and align with supportive collection practices, while LGR and changes to local government funding impact on scheme design.

Deven Ghelani (Director) and Rory Ewan (Senior Policy and Data Analyst) of Policy in Practice will discuss the impact of these policy changes and practical approaches based on our analysis of over 150 schemes. We will also be joined by Lindsay Sayer who will share her experience of CTRS redesign in South Norfolk and Broadland, and harmonisation across the districts.

This webinar will aim to provide Heads of Revenues and Benefits, Revenues Managers, Finance Directors and policy leads with the tools to navigate complex legislative changes and design data driven, resilient schemes.

By acting now, councils can turn these policy challenges into an opportunity to deliver fairer, more efficient support.

4/2/2026

9:00am GMT

30 minutes

Council Tax Reduction: Practical approaches to policy reform and supporting the most vulnerable In recent years, Council Tax arrears in England have hit a record £6 billion.

As we move into 2026, the design of local Council Tax Reduction (CTR) schemes remains one of the most powerful levers councils have to protect low income residents from falling into arrears.

Join us at this webinar to explore practical solutions focused on:

• Trends in council tax support schemes: Preparing for LGR and the April budget changes
• Streamlined collection: Aligning CTR scheme design to make it simple to administer, and combine this with flexible, effective and sustainable debt management practices
• Local government reorganisation: Best practices to harmonise disparate schemes and be ready for the transition
• Efficiency through automation: How South Norfolk & Broadland councils are working to increase take-up while reducing the administrative burden of Universal Credit fluctuations through income-banded schemes and automated modelling

The policy landscape is shifting rapidly. The government’s new Child Poverty Strategy introduces statutory requirements for councils to ensure their schemes actively reduce inequality and align with supportive collection practices, while LGR and changes to local government funding impact on scheme design.

Deven Ghelani (Director) and Rory Ewan (Senior Policy and Data Analyst) of Policy in Practice will discuss the impact of these policy changes and practical approaches based on our analysis of over 150 schemes. We will also be joined by Lindsay Sayer who will share her experience of CTRS redesign in South Norfolk and Broadland, and harmonisation across the districts.

This webinar will aim to provide Heads of Revenues and Benefits, Revenues Managers, Finance Directors and policy leads with the tools to navigate complex legislative changes and design data driven, resilient schemes.

By acting now, councils can turn these policy challenges into an opportunity to deliver fairer, more efficient support.

17/2/2026

10:30am GMT

1 hour

Unifying the tenant journey: Overcoming fragmented support from lettings to collections

25/3/2026

10:30am GMT

1 hour

Driving cash first support: efficient multi-year HSF allocation using data segmentation in Tower Hamlets

Challenge

Reaching the right residents quickly with discretionary payments

Solution

Proactive, data-led outreach enhanced existing application based scheme

Impact

Prompt cash first payments efficiently and accurately allocated to eligible residents

Figures correct in January 2026

CRF case study

£9,098,355

Total HSF allocated using LIFT

77,081

Number of Post Office payout vouchers issued to eligible households

Rapid delivery

Eligibility criteria identified without manual data merging across teams

"The ability to segment our community using the LIFT dashboard has transformed how we deliver the Household Support Fund. It has allowed us to move at pace, ensuring that over £9 million in support was directed exactly where it was needed most, particularly for those residents who may not have known they were eligible to apply."

Tower Hamlets is already addressing a key pillar of the Crisis and Resilience Fund by evolving its support distribution model to include proactive, cash first interventions.

Using data insights to identify residents most impacted by the cost of living crisis has allowed the council to prioritise rapid, cash first assistance. This model illustrates what good looks like, proving that discretionary support can be delivered with precision and pace.

The challenge: reaching the right residents quickly

For Tower Hamlets Council, identifying residents most impacted by the cost of living crisis was vital to understanding how to allocate their Household Support Fund (HSF).

With funding often announced with short lead times, the council needed a way to plan schemes and identify residents without the administrative burden of pulling together many datasets across different teams.

The solution: proactive segmentation through LIFT

From tranche 2 in 2022 to tranche 7 in 2025/2026, officers have used LIFT each year to segment their low income households. While the council maintained an application based scheme, the use of LIFT was a vital supplement to ensure support reached those who didn’t proactively reach out for support.

By using the insights from their data that LIFT generated, the council could quickly identify groups of residents who fit specific eligibility criteria for cash first payments.

The council used LIFT to filter for specific groups, including:

Households with children
Pensioners
Single households
Working households
Households with a disability
Those worst off in terms of income to expected expenditure
Households missing out on the winter fuel payment in winter 2024/25

Once identified, these residents were sent vouchers in the post that they could redeem for a cash payment at their local post office.

The results: efficient and targeted delivery

Using LIFT as the central engine for identification, the council has successfully allocated a total of £9,098,355.

This data led approach enabled the distribution of 77,081 vouchers to residents who otherwise might not have come forward for support.

Takeaways for the Crisis and Resilience Fund

The approach taken by Tower Hamlets illustrates how councils can proactively allocate scarce discretionary funds at scale. By using LIFT to establish a system for rapid, data led identification, the council has moved away from reactive and time consuming data exercises.

This model shows other local authorities how to meet the operational requirements of the crisis and resilience fund by delivering a cash first approach that is both accurate and administratively efficient.

"Our local authority was keen on doing cash first payments and, with funding often announcements giving little time to plan a scheme benefiting a variety of residents, the LIFT dashboard was fundamental towards quickly identifying groups of residents who fit the eligibility criteria without pulling together many datasets across a variety of teams."