Challenge
It costs an additional £975 a month for a disabled person to reach the same living standards as a non-disabled person.
Scope, a disabilities charity, is on the journey to end disabilities inequalities by supporting over 16 million disabled households with debt support and benefits advice.
They wanted to empower all disabled people looking for jobs to move into, stay in, and progress in employment. Disabled households often have complex and fluctuating circumstances. Helpline advisors work with each household to see the impact of claiming additional support on entitlement to other benefits.
Helpline advisors needed a quick and accurate tool to have these conversations about income maximisation and offer personalised plans of action. But other benefits entitlement checkers did not offer the high level of benefit coverage needed to signpost to the right support.
Solution
In 2021, Scope licensed the award-winning Better Off Calculator to improve the customer journey with outcome-focused benefits and budgeting advice that they can trust.
The calculator makes complex benefit rules simple by modelling over 4,000 pieces of legislation into one comprehensive form. Helpline advisors could fill this out on behalf of their clients and quickly see what benefits the household was eligible for.
The Better Off Calculator allows advisors to compare multiple scenarios for each household they were supporting. This empowered households to plan for the future with exact calculations of their benefits long term.
To navigate even the most complex cases, advisors utilised the calculator’s live chat function, to get instant access to Policy in Practice’s policy experts during the work week.
Impact
Over two years since using the Better Off Calculator, 40% of Scope referrals rely on it to guide their month to month budgeting and employment plans.
In the last year alone, Scope has found £134,000 in unclaimed support for over 80 households. The average household received an additional £1,600 per year in support, bridging the gap in living standard for households with disabilities.
One advisor shares how the Better Off Calculator helped one family to get an additional £643 per month to help their daughter with a physical disability:
Last month one of our benefits advisers spoke to a customer who was struggling financially and wanted to know if there was any other support available.
Their daughter has a physical disability and is a wheelchair user. They had recently had to pay out a large sum for some mobility equipment. Our adviser established that they were receiving Universal Credit and completed a calculation with them on the call.
Through use of the Better Off Calculator the adviser learned that they were missing the carers and disabled child element of Universal Credit. This totalled £185.86 per month for the carers element and £456.89 per month for the disabled child element, a total gain of £642.75 per month.
The customer was extremely happy and very thankful we had taken the time to go through the calculator with her.
Laura Canning, Contact Centre Manager, Scope
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