WELCOME
Pension Credits Campaign
A Call to Action
We are asking all housing providers across Greater Manchester to get behind a campaign to increase Pension Credit take-up.
We are asking you to commit to a campaign that involves communication and publicity backed up with outreach work that will both encourage people to claim and support them through the process.
Longer term we are asking you to consider options to more systemically address the Pension Credit issue in recognition of this being an ongoing, recurring issue which is likely to continue for future generations of pension-age individuals.
Why are we doing this?
Research undertaken by GMCA shows that there is a persistently low uptake of the Pension Credit benefit amongst eligible Greater Manchester residents. A summary is attached to this briefing note.
Key findings from the research are that:
- Previous awareness raising campaigns have had little impact so a different approach is needed.
- Outreach, in the form of direct contact with those who may be eligible, is needed in order to overcome barriers to claiming and to support people through the claims process.
Why a GMHP Campaign?
A working group comprising the research report authors plus experts in services for older people, financial inclusion, resident engagement and marcomms have pooled their expertise to create this toolkit to help you with your local campaigns, whatever the level of resource you are able to commit to this.
This includes:
- Communications assets – a ready to go set of graphics that you can use to support your campaign.
- Suggestions on what your outreach might look like.
- Data packs for each local authority area showing where take up is especially low.
- A survey form for measuring the impact of your campaign.
For further details of the GMHP Campaign and toolkit please contact Julie Ralph (Julie.Ralph@boltonathome.org.uk)
The campaign run by housing providers will be a major part of a wider GM campaign led by the GMCA. GMCA will be sharing resources and communications with wider partners across GM including local authorities and political leaders.
The GMCA is also running longer-term work to assess whether data tools can be developed to identify who and where residents are that are eligible for Pension Credit, but are not claiming. This will allow us to be much more targeted in future outreach work.
For further details of this work, please contact Jo Garsden (jo.garsden@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk) in the GM Ageing Hub.