Story ideas
Evidence-backed angles, charts and local data for journalists looking for a story. Every idea below is built entirely from statistics, datasets, charts and research SupportFund already holds and can evidence.
Filter by topic. Every angle links straight to the underlying evidence.
Local Council Support · England
Crisis and Resilience Fund allocations for 2026/27 vary hugely by local authority — but a large part of that variation is structural: district councils only receive Housing Payment and administration funding, while unitary, metropolitan and London authorities also receive crisis and resilience funding.
Read the angle →Local Council Support · Region
Summing the published Annex A rows by English region shows how the total £858m Crisis and Resilience Fund is distributed across regions — though regions contain different numbers of authorities with different populations and responsibilities.
Read the angle →Local Council Support · Council
SupportFund's analysis of 45 local authority Crisis and Resilience Fund schemes found real differences in scheme status, the support types councils publish, and how completely each council's information could be verified.
Read the angle →Energy · UK
Ofgem's own consumer vulnerability data shows record domestic energy debt and arrears alongside a rise in the share of electricity customers repaying debt through a prepayment meter, at the same time as a further increase to the energy price cap.
Read the angle →Cost of Living · UK
The ONS Household Costs Index shows higher annual cost inflation for low-income households and for private and social renters than for high-income households, alongside ONS survey data on what households say is driving costs up and how they are responding.
Read the angle →Benefits · UK
DWP's own statistics show more than three million people on Universal Credit are in work, and that the large majority of PIP claimants are of working age — figures that complicate a simple 'benefits caseload' narrative.
Read the angle →Housing · England
ONS data shows UK average private rent reached £1,388 a month, 3.3% higher than a year earlier, while the England average was higher still at £1,446 a month.
Read the angle →Cost of Living · UK
ONS monthly series show food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation peaking at 19.1% in March 2023, while headline CPI peaked lower, and both slowing sharply by mid-2026.
Read the angle →Debt · UK
The official Bank Rate rose from 0.25% in December 2021 to 5.25% by August 2023, and has since fallen in steps to the rate in force today — still far above the pre-2022 level.
Read the angle →Energy · GB
Ofgem's Q1 2026 debt and arrears indicators separate customers repaying a debt from customers in arrears with no arrangement in place — a distinction usually lost in headline debt totals.
Read the angle →Benefits · GB
Published DWP snapshots show the headline caseload rising steadily across four years, driven in part by managed migration from legacy benefits rather than by new need alone.
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