Valuing tenancies… by improving financial confidence HSA Annual Conference 2014,

Danny Friedman,

Cobweb Consulting and Ecorys Associate

An outline of the IFC programme …… • Big Lottery Fund £31.7m strategic investment• Targeting social housing tenants –

– first time, – young tenants, – in and out of work

• Testing different approaches to engaging social housing residents in financial inclusion activities

• Demonstrating and disseminating impact of activities to social housing landlords and financial sector organisations

• 37 projects delivering range of activities for 3 to 5 years• Led by social landlords and voluntary sector organisations,

with buy in from local authorities

Improving Financial Confidence outcomes• Social housing residents have greater access to appropriate and

affordable financial services and products• Social housing residents have increased skills and confidence to

use financial products and services and will continue to apply these skills and this confidence

• Social housing providers engage with most in need residents to enable them to understand the relevance of financial inclusion and capability services

• Social housing and financial sector organisations have increased awareness of the impact of a range of approaches to engaging social housing residents in financial inclusion activities.

Changing attitudes and behaviours

• Building resilience in at early stages / critical points of tenancies

• Promoting preventative strategies – but also becoming remedial

• Changing attitudes and behaviours of tenants in both the immediate and longer terms

• Self-evaluation and assessment of behaviour / attitude change AND empirical testing of reality v. belief

Demonstrating impact of programme (1)

Baseline indicators and measuring change

•Measurable baseline indicators for beneficiaries and landlords•Then over time assess costs and savings for:

• Landlords• Tenants• Two cuts of tenant data captured, and landlord initial baseline

•Use clusters and client groupings to show ‘what works’•Use counterfactuals to compare high level results

– Still under discussion, but data from non-participants in five projects currently being collected

– Based on administrative data rather than self-reported data

Demonstrating impact of programme (2)

Measuring attitudinal / behavioural change

MyFC tool

•Based on the JRF Equip toolkit •Takes five minutes (if that)•Simple set of 12 statements (e.g.) ‘I feel confident in managing my money’; each scored on a seven point scale•Tool used as beneficiary enters programme•Retaken blind after appropriate period (6 months, 1 year)•Overall financial confidence score calculated (minus 1 to plus 1)•Change measured

Baseline indicators for beneficiaries –

Demographics

• 7,126 beneficiaries from 33 projects

• 58% women, 42% men (67% women in in/out work group)

• Average age 32 (42 for in/out work, 20 for young people)

• 71% white British (67% for new tenants)

• Low educational attainment – 40% with no qualifications (or ‘didn’t know’

• Unemployment 58%

• Full or p/t employment 19%

• 26% had disability (12% among young tenants), 11% can’t work because of disability

• 20% had support worker (31% among young tenants)

• 53% in ‘financial difficulties’ currently (73% for in/out work)

• 10% had credit card debt (17% in/out work); 14% overdrawn

• 28% in rent arrears; 50% for those in/out of work

• 10% have NOSP; 8% had been evicted from a previous tenancy

• Other debt:

– Water (22%)

– Council Tax (21%)

– Fuel (13%)

– All higher among in/out work group

Baseline indicators for beneficiaries –

Financial difficulty

• 83% receiving benefits / tax credits (92% in / out work)

• Most common are JSA (66%) and HB (59%)

• 83% have bank account (national average 95%); 7% had contents insurance

• 6% credit union members (10% in/out work group)

• 39% have outstanding loans inc. from banks (13% from payday lenders, pawnbrokers, home credit agencies)

• 1% from unlicensed lenders / loan sharks

• 16% had (no interest) loans from family, friends

• 20% had social fund loans

Baseline indicators for beneficiaries –

Money matters

Baseline indicators for landlords

• Average rent arrears 3.8%;

• 6.3% tenants in arrears of eight weeks or over

• Average arrears per tenant in arrears £268

• Average collection rate 98.7% (compared to 99.3% benchmark)

• Average time short term voids vacant 7.5 weeks

• 12% tenancies had NOSPs / NSPs taken out over last year

• 2% tenancies had had PO proceedings taken over last year

• Arrears management, PO and eviction proceedings took an average of 6.1% staff time (all staff)

• 91% landlords carrying out additional benefits, debt management and related advice / training outside IFC

• 74% landlords providing other FI activities, products or services (e.g. affordable loans, contents insurance, work with credit unions

Impact of IFC on beneficiaries… money matters

Impact of IFC on beneficiaries … confidence

Thank youDanny Friedman, Cobweb Consulting

danny@cobwebconsulting.com

www.cobwebconsulting.com