In the UK, the rate of child poverty is staggering: 29% of all children are in poverty. Extensive evidence shows that growing up in poverty is harmful for child development as by age three, children from lower-income backgrounds are at a greater risk of falling behind in cognitive and socio-emotional development. This has life-long implications — increasing the chances of poorer adult health, wellbeing and income. 

However, there is evidence to suggest that increasing family income can improve early childhood attainment and that these gains have long-term benefits through adulthood. This is why we are exploring different ways to evidence and break the link between family income and child outcomes.

One approach we are exploring is to maximise families income from current benefit entitlements. 

For families in poverty experiencing the financial pressure of parenting young children, every bit of additional income may make a difference. Yet analysis by Policy in Practice suggests that £19bn in benefits are unclaimed each year by people who are entitled to the support. The Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs estimate that only 84% of those entitled take up the Child Tax Credit, while other benefit entitlements have estimated take up rates between 66 and 90%. 

We believe that by improving the service quality and scalability of income maximisation tools and services we can make it easier for families in disadvantage to access support — enabling a more optimal home learning environment for children. We are interested in working with existing tools and services that have extensive experience supporting parents and families to claim their entitlements.

Our aims for this project are to:

1. better understand the landscape of income maximisation tools and services
2. estimate how much money is unclaimed, by who, and for which benefits 
3. develop hypotheses about where Nesta can support the sector - whether that be through developing new product features or partnering with others to enable the scale up of these services.

In collaboration with the Behavioural Insights Team, we are undertaking a fairly rapid project to meet these aims. 

Over the next six weeks, we will be looking at the wide range of tools and services available, including digital tools and in-person support services. We will be using user design and behavioural science to map the user journeys and points of friction or opportunity for families who may use benefits calculators and support services to claim their entitlements. Finally, we will use data from the Family Resources Survey to develop estimates of which groups of people are not claiming their full entitlements and which benefits are going unclaimed – estimates which are not currently available.

Throughout, we will be speaking to experts, academics, policymakers and front-line practitioners about their ideas, and how we might be able to help. If you have questions or ideas, please reach out to the project team or to [email protected].

Moria Sloan, Mary-Alice Doyle and Dr Abigail Mottershaw