WEBINAR - Benefits, income and the cost-of-living: what does the data really show?

One in six UK adults claims Universal Credit, yet over a third of them are in work. For millions of people, benefits aren't a replacement for income; they're what makes ends meet.

As food and energy costs continue to rise, local authorities and policy teams need to understand not just who is claiming, but how benefits fit into the fuller picture of people's finances and where vulnerability is rising.

Join us on 26th May for a webinar to introduce the new Benefits Reliance indicator in the Economic Wellbeing Explorer. The session will guide you through a new way of understanding how much people depend on benefits, earnings, and pensions to maintain living standards.

Using aggregated and anonymised financial data from 5 million consumer bank accounts, the indicator provides a near real-time view of the proportion of people in a local area whose benefits income from Universal Credit, Housing Credit and Tax Credit makes up at least 20% of their total income. This helps us to understand how different sources of income work together to contribute to financial stability and wellbeing, and to see where claims are rising or falling in response to economic events and policy changes – before they show up in official statistics. 

In this webinar, we will explore:

• Why traditional measures can struggle to capture changing financial realities
• How smart financial data offers a more timely and detailed picture of economic wellbeing
• What the new Benefits Reliance indicator reveals about local financial pressure
• practical use cases for local authorities, policymakers, researchers and third-sector organisations

The session will also include a live demonstration of the Economic Wellbeing Explorer and a discussion on how this data can support earlier intervention, more targeted support and better-informed policymaking.

Speakers

Rui Cardoso - Head of Public Sector Engagement at Smart Data Foundry

Rui has over a decade of experience in the public, private, and academic sectors. At CivTech, Rui played a key role in driving digital transformation, developing challenge creation methodologies, and enhancing cross-sector collaboration. Following further success at Wallscope, where he led business development and strategy, Rui now focuses on strengthening public sector engagement at Smart Data Foundry. He is dedicated to harnessing near real-time private sector data to enhance evidence-based decision-making across government and public services.