Policy in Practice helps local authorities to unlock the power of their existing administrative data to improve the way social policy and welfare support is delivered across the UK. With over 1.5 million shielded residents, one million new benefit claimants, and thousands of vulnerable children and adults, councils are at the frontline of supporting people impacted directly or indirectly by the pandemic. They have a statutory duty to protect their most vulnerable households and recognise the importance and potential of their existing data to help identify and support people impacted by COVID-19\. Low income households are disproportionately more likely to be affected by the measures put in place to control the pandemic. With benefit caseloads rising rapidly, the administrative data councils hold on low income residents (those in receipt of housing benefit or Universal Credit) can help councils target support quickly to those most heavily impacted. This data is already an essential part of the design and delivery of support at the local level, helping local governments target the right support to the right people. Currently, there is a time-lag between the receipt of administrative data and our ability to deliver meaningful insights, with the process taking up to six weeks and refreshed on a quarterly basis. With conditions changing so quickly due to COVID-19, these analytics need to be delivered monthly and in near real time to maximise their impact and effectiveness and utility for councils. Real-time analytics will help councils to identify newly vulnerable and key affected groups to better mitigate the social and economic costs of this crisis. Innovate UK funding will be used to accelerate a novel approach to ongoing automation efforts with councils, speeding up access to insight from six weeks to two days, and frequency from quarterly to monthly updates. Working with administrative data on a secure, automated scalable basis in the cloud will enable data to be used operationally to support people impacted by COVID-19\. Grant funding will accelerate development efforts at pace, bringing in external expertise to enable real-time monthly analytics to be accessed by a minimum of fifty participating councils. The long-term benefit of the project will be to accelerate a shift in the use of administrative data from processing and resource planning today, toward proactive and targeted support to individuals in the UK and elsewhere, greatly improving the cost-effective delivery of outcomes across a range of social policy areas. --- Additional Information Here --- An extension is enabling six clients and two new clients to overcome internal governance delays and access the platform. An extension for impact grant will allow us to support a further nineteen clients (including six new clients) that have expressed interest in the project to access the platform, and to explore with three of our clients their request to further develop the platform by working with Universal Credit data, enabling a shift from monthly to daily updates.