UK Welfare

In this episode, we delve into the complexities and challenges currently facing the UK welfare sector. We explore the issue of fragmentation, where different services are not interconnected, leading to inefficiencies and gaps in support for those who need it most. We also discuss potential solutions that the sector and organisations can adopt to continue helping people in a more efficient way.


Matthew (Matt) Adam is the Founder of We Are Group, a mission-led scale-up based in the West Midlands disrupting the tech-for-good space. Founded in 2012, We Are Group now helps around 100,000 people a year to get online, access essential government online services, manage money and debts, gain new jobs, and ultimately improve their lives. Matt is a 2023 Digital Leader of the Year nominee backed by Europe's top impact investors.
Matt enjoys playing tennis, spending time with his two young daughters, and watching films when he isn't working.

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Transcript

0:06

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Social Footprint. I'm Jasneet and today I'm joined with Matthew Adam, founder of We Are Group, and we'll be discussing UK welfare. I mean, welfare in the UK is encompassing of health, education, benefits, work. But for the sake of this conversation, what would you define welfare as, Matthew? Yeah, it's a huge area. It's quite a complex area as well. So it's not always easy to define. I think a lot of people when they hear terms like the welfare state, think a lot about organisations like DWP at the government, the benefit system that supports people in need and to help people get back into work. That's definitely a huge part of it. I think our definition of welfare is quite broad. It's essentially all the community services that go on across the regions of the UK that support people in need. That may be someone who is needing to get a job, it may be someone who needs information, advice and guidance on things like support with money, help with their debts, pensions and so forth. It could also be a skills and education issue, as you say. So digital inclusion, financial inclusion, improving people's skills with how they work with digital, how they work with their money. And it can also include health. So healthcare, social care, which of course is a huge area in its own right as well. Great. So can you just talk about kind of UK welfare in its current state and the challenges it's faced with at the moment? Sure. So I think the welfare sector is a very large and fairly misunderstood space in terms of size. It's probably one of the most important sectors in the UK. It represents about a third of UK GDP, over £300 billion of spend. Obviously that includes things like the complete benefits system and payments to people in need, employability and so forth. So it's a huge part of the sector. It's one that I feel quite passionately about is fairly forgotten. At the same time being such an oversized sector in the UK. What I mean by that is a lot of other sectors get a lot of attention, both investment, skills, education, things like financial technology, healthcare and things like that. But the feeling at We Are Group is that welfare is kind of left behind, slightly and forgotten in terms of talent and investment. And it's something that we think is very disruptable, as well. So there's lots of different pain points that we see in welfare programmes at the moment and we believe at We Are Group, that there are ways and solutions and services that can help the welfare state and we're passionate about bringing bringing some of those things to market. Okay. That's really interesting actually to hear We Are Groups involvement in that. So in terms of one of the biggest challenges that I've heard you mention before is the kind of fragmentation across welfare. Can you explain a little bit more about that challenge? Sure. So we've been doing, I guess, research over the last 2 to 3 years based on a lot of people we meet across the UK councils, housing associations, central government charities, corporates and there are a number of different pain points that we come across. But the one of the biggest ones seems to be this fragmentation issue. By that we mean essentially that there are hundreds of thousands of very powerful, impactful programmes going on all across the welfare state. So this could be digital skills programmes, debt advice, mental health support, employability, so many different things. But what we don't see is anyone or anything joining it all together. So, you have this collection of huge disparate entities, charities, organisations, doing amazing work, but very sporadic, very fragmented and not really joined together. It's almost as if everyone is doing things separately in silos. Okay, that's really interesting. So in terms of that fragmentation, sorry, and the siloed effect, so what impact does that have on perhaps organisations as well as kind of the general population then who are really in need of welfare? Sure. So we probably see it from two sides. Organisations so that might be local government, central government housing associations, we often see the effect on them of this fragmentation is that when they're funding these programmes, they have to deal with tens or hundreds of what we call delivery partners. So these are community organisations delivering really important work on the ground. So advice, information, guidance, support, training to people in need, residents in need on the ground. So the issue for the funding organisations is that there are too many of them working in different ways, different systems, different reporting mechanisms, different funding mechanisms to really efficiently manage and keep control of them. So that's one big issue. The second part of your question, I guess, is around the users, the learners, the individual residents we find from our research that the biggest pain point for them is that they're often pushed from pillar to post. So they, you know, people we all lead difficult, complex lives with lots of different things going on. It's never a sort of, you know, one size fits all. And a lot of the programmes we've looked at and researched and some that we've run ourselves when we've taken them over, we've seen quite surprisingly, really, that a lot of people in need that need that support when they present that need by calling a council phone number or presenting themselves at a local charity organisation. They are not always helped as quickly and efficiently as we think they could be. So what I mean by pushed from pillar to post is they may be given another phone number. There's a lot of talk in the community about what's called signposting to signposting. So sort of never ending signposting. So there's lots of things that mean ultimately, sadly, for some individuals, it takes a long time to get their help. And we're big believers that you can put in certain solutions to mean that they can be helped quicker. Okay, that's really interesting. So in terms of the solution then perhaps, maybe that you know, organisations and businesses, local government like you said, and housing associations and whatnot, what could they really harness and use to help kind of resolve those challenges? Looking at the kind of bigger picture as well? Sure. So I think, you know, it's a complex web of different issues. We're not saying that we think there's a silver bullet or a sort of, you know, one solution. But there are a number of elements, I guess you could say, that we've come across that we think if tied together can be, you know, really impactful and at least help us to move along the way slightly. So we're not trying to say we have the perfect answer, but one of the examples of what we've seen that can be a solution is essentially what we call a one stop shop. So of all these brilliant programs and providers in the community, we believe there needs to be a way of bringing them all together. So bringing them under one roof, one organisation that can provide basically a managed service. So we think there's a lot of inherent power in the bringing together the orchestration, the connection of all of these entities. So in essence, a platform or a way of working, as we call it here, that joins everything together end to end. So from the first referral of someone in that shows a need and onwards all the way through their journey to be booked up to a supplier that can help them. And then what happens, the outcome and the reporting at the end. One of our big solutions that we believe for some of these pain points is to stitch all that together, if you will, and bring it under kind of one managed service. Okay. Yeah, that's a lot to unpack there. So obviously that sounds to me like a no brainer for organisations and companies to do, but how would you imagine, you know, you'd encourage or incentivise that way of working and bringing all these kind of communities and partnerships and businesses together? Yeah, it's a good question. I think we find this all the time that when you look across the sector or the wealth welfare space, it's a huge spider's web of, you know, complex needs on the user side. Many, many different types of funders, all shapes and sizes, and then hundreds of thousands of delivery organisations out there. And when you multiply all that together, it's this huge melting pot of different things and that that can definitely be a challenge to bring that together. I mean, if you look at delivery partners on the ground, you have, I think, 10,000 or so independent advice charities out there that are doing information, advice and guidance. And that doesn't take into account some of the branded networks that have hundreds of locations. So, yeah, it's a big, big challenge. I think one of the things we're trying to do is, you know, things like this podcast thought leadership and different information to show people that there's a different way of organising themselves. So we're big believers and want to kind of do a campaign to show people that actually if you do deliver a service in a slightly different way and bring some of these different stages of a customer journey together, it can be much more impactful. So we're trying to kind of get the word out there and speak to different organisations that have maybe run in this way for decades, we believe. But by joining things up, we can show that services can be delivered more cheaply. You can help more people and you can help them quicker and faster. And it's more impactful ultimately for that organisation and that person's life. Okay. I know that's a really nice sentiment, actually, kind of strength in solidarity and whatnot. So if people did adopt that approach, if organisations did adopt that approach, what benefits would they reap as well as obviously kind of an efficiency for the end user? Is there any benefits that they reap as well there? So we see the benefits slightly differently for, I guess, which angle you're looking at on the programme. So in terms of end users, we've mentioned how they can find services quicker and it's more impactful for their life. They also get triaged through our services. So they go to the point of need of where they actually need help and about the right theme or subject for them. And again, we find in a lot of programmes there isn't always that upfront triage that can route people down the right path. But in terms of organisations or, you know, the funders of these programmes, we see from some of the solutions if they adopt a model like this, that there's also quite powerful benefits for them as well. So that would include things like, you know, budgets are quite tight at the moment for some of these public sector organisations. We've seen programmes that adopt this model where they can actually help more people per year for less cost. So similar to a sort of spend to save type programme, you invest in either digital transformation or kind of welfare transformation, as we're talking about here, doing things in a different way, organising things in a different way. In terms of the service model we can see for funding organisations can be really impactful. So they can help more people for less cost per year. We also see some of the benefits around the efficiency of the programme. So again, we've seen a lot of welfare programmes across the community where the funding organisation is tearing their hair out because they may find it very difficult to get reporting done in a timely manner from lots of different service organisations that they're dealing with. And just the very nature of dealing with so many organisations as well can be very tricky and difficult for those organisations, compared to this model, which we're suggesting allows them to have a one stop shop approach. You deal with one organisation and that organisation then deals with the supply chain. So really it's about saving costs, helping more people in need per year and an efficiency gain really to make an end to end programme with all the different stages within that come together for them and allow them to manage it in a much easier and more cost effective manner. Okay. Yeah, I think the cost effective element and the kind of spend to save, as you termed it there, that is really quite apt. I mean, looking at, you know, like regional government, local authorities at the moment, they are, you know, really tight for budgets. They're not getting the funding they need. So I think, yeah, like you said, new service delivery, or you know, innovative models are needed now more than ever to help reach those people who really need welfare and welfare services. So. Yeah, thank you. Matthew, it's been great to talk to you today about UK welfare, some really great insights. And, and hopefully, you know, this, this vision and these approaches will turn into a reality. Thanks very much. Yeah, we're big believers in the model and we want to try and make sure that enough organisations get to see how to do things differently. So thanks for having me. Thank you.