Proactively contacting residents with support

The Council is here to support all Barking and Dagenham residents. Usually, residents get in touch with us when they require support, but not everyone knows when they should speak to the Council or how they should do this. We frequently work with residents that are in difficulties that we could have helped with if they had contacted us earlier. To better support these residents, we are testing a new approach by contacting some residents when it looks like they might need support.

What does the new approach look like?

The Council will be testing a new way of offering support to people experiencing financial hardship. Using data analytics, we will be identifying residents that seem to be having difficulties in paying their council tax and social housing rent and might have other issues going on in their lives, which we can gauge through their interactions with wider council services. 

By looking at this information, we will be able to identify residents that might benefit from support from the council. An officer will then contact them via a text message and a phone call to offer financial support and any other support they might need. This is a totally voluntary offer and so the resident can decline the support if they want. 

Who will receive support in this new way?

Since we are testing a different approach to delivering services, we will first be doing it on a small scale to see if it’s helpful for residents. This will allow us to assess how well the approach works and improve it if required.

With that in mind, we will be proactively contacting only those residents that meet certain criteria for receiving a support call. However, it is important to note that all services offered through our proactive support calls are also accessible to any Barking and Dagenham resident who approaches the Council. Everyone living in the borough can access this support through the LBBD website or by visiting their local Community Hub.

How will the council use data analytics to identify people eligible for a support call?

In order to deliver and improve the services we provide, we use resident data in a range of ways. There are several duties placed on councils to identify and support individuals early, aiming to prevent their needs from worsening (e.g., Housing – Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, Housing - s179(2) of the Housing Act 1996). In this project we are bringing together data and analysing it to help us understand if a resident needs financial support or support with wider needs. 

To identify people who may need support, we will be using the information we already hold such as council tax and social housing rent payments, benefits history, and interactions with other council services to help us understand where someone may be experiencing difficulties. 

This information will be analysed by our data analytics system and will flag residents that seem to have complex and worsening needs. We will contact people from this group.  

You can read more about how the Council processes resident data on our general privacy notice page.

You can read more about how data will be processed for this project on the GOV.uk website.