Vulnerability index and debt insights solution
Identify vulnerable citizens and address rising debts
Centralise your data, reporting and insights
Bring together data from all areas to create a single view of individuals, their debts, and their level of need for additional support using a vulnerability index to identify individuals most in need of support during the cost-of-living crisis.
The cost of living crisis is putting a strain on many families, putting more people at risk of poverty or homelessness.
Local council data is more important than ever in identifying vulnerable citizens and targeting support more effectively to help citizens out of poverty and reduce homelessness.
A single trusted record for each citizen can help identify debts attached to movers (redirects), wilful avoiders and those in hardship who may require interventions and payment plans back to a stable position. A single record can improve communication and collaboration between team and departments.
2.1 million or 18% of pensioners live in a state of poverty struggling to make ends meet
After write-offs there was £3 billion is uncollected council tax
Vulnerability index and debt insights solution
The vulnerability index and debt insights solution is a comprehensive solution that helps councils identify and support citizens who are most at risk during the cost-of-living crisis. The solution provides a complete and accurate single view of a citizens debts and entitlements, which councils can use to develop targeted interventions and report on progress.
Our approach consolidates data from the breadth of sources available, including: citizen records, debts and benefits, social metrics and external reference sets to provide a holistic understanding of each citizen’s circumstances.
Below are examples of just some of the sources for consideration, it’s not exhaustive and our approach can handle any additional sources you require:
Core Citizen Records & Demographics
- Name, Address, Tel, Email, Age, ethnicity, gender, dependents, marital status, consents, any IDs (e.g., UPRN), source
- These need to be probabilistically matched to create trusted Single View for each citizen and their household
Financial context
- Increasing Debts: Council Tax arrears, Business Rates arrears, Parking Fines, Housing Rents arrears, Sundries, Energy consumption (Smart meters)
- Changes to Entitlements & Benefits: job seekers, universal credit, care payments, housing benefits, Single Person Discount, blue badges, winter fuel allowance, child benefit, sure start, healthy start, free school meals
Social and Family context
- New parents, recently discharged and specific packages, worklessness within families, adults/children with mental health concerns, drug or alcohol affected families, families in non-suitable accommodation, specific disability groups or new disability (PIP, DLA), CIN
External contexts
- Providers: Credit scoring, Housing, Health, Police, Energy companies, DWP, Food bank usage, Citizens Advice, Warm Spaces
- Open data sets: e.g., deprivation, OFSTED inspections, crime
“We’re so pleased to be working with Simpson Associates on this incredibly important project for Wirral. It will give us the ability to proactively identify and deliver early preventative measures and support our planning for the future.”
Vikki Chapman
ICT Digital Solutions Manager, Wirral Council
Find and prioritise support for those most at risk of poverty or homelessness through informed early interventions, and maximise incomes through improved collections.
Bring data together in a single scalable platform and create a trusted Single View of your citizens and households.
Identify and intervene to support people most in need of additional help during the cost-of-living crisis through a focussed Vulnerability Index developed against your data assets.
Maximise incomes and collaborate as a team to address the funding challenge.
Benefits and Deliverables
The main benefits of this approach to identify vulnerable citizens and debts include:
- Better and accurate identification of at-risk citizens
- Reduce homelessness through early intervention and payment planning
- Gain a single view of debts that all teams can access
- Improved citizen navigation to benefits, entitlements, and support services
- Redistribute resources from manual data processing activities to deliver analytics or more impactful work
- Reduced process risk by reducing potential for error, data security, or single points of failure
- Improved data quality and ability to develop and implement tech solutions for wider use cases based on a scalable platform
We will work with you to leverage the capabilities of the Microsoft Azure platform and also provide full skills and knowledge transfer to your team.