Staying informed on government benefits and services

In a previous article, we talked about the difficulties faced by community workers who help people with their benefits. One of these difficulties was staying up to date on changes to these services. If community workers are not aware of changes, then they might give the wrong advice to the people they are trying to help. This could lead to delayed or missed benefits. This is a problem not just for the community workers, but also for anyone seeking information about benefits.

In this article, we dive more into the cause of this problem and how we could solve it.

The problem: information about benefits and services is spread out

We learned from our research that there is no one source for updates about benefits. We tried to find a list of updates on Canada.ca but we couldn’t. The closest we could find was the News section. But this is a collection of news releases, media advisories and speeches. It doesn’t have a complete list of updates about benefits and services that is easy to understand.

Instead, if someone wants to find information about changes to benefits, they must search through multiple webpages or call us.

When we talked to community workers, they confirmed that this is a pain point. To overcome this, they reported using a range of strategies to stay up to date, including:

• ministerial newsletters
• Google Alerts
• CBC headlines and X (Twitter)
• information from other team members or team leads

These community workers were frustrated ️that they had to constantly check websites. They said that there were too many sources for them to manage, and that they were sure that they were missing important updates. One community worker we spoke to even mentioned that they heard of a change to a benefit 3 months after the change took effect.

Service Canada's research says that most people go online to get information about government benefits. But only 74% find what they need in a reasonable amount of time (Client Experience Survey 2021 to 2022).

People should be able to quickly find updates about benefits online so that they don’t miss hearing about new benefits or important changes to them.

The solution: the Benefits newsfeed

We think a newsfeed might be a solution to this problem. It’s designed to keep you informed in real time about changes to government benefits and services.

Here's what makes it special:

• relevant information: the newsfeed only has updates about benefits and service delivery, not press releases
• information from all federal departments in one place: information is gathered from all relevant departments, so you don't have to search in several places
• easy-to-use search: a search bar and filters allow you to find what you’re looking for
• easy-to-understand information: updates are written in plain language, and tags tell you whether a benefit or service is new or has been updated

Next Steps

The Benefits newsfeed is just one idea to help people learn about government benefits. Other ideas that are being explored include improving the Canada Benefits Finder and exploring if artificial intelligence can provide personalized information about government benefits. You may see some of these ideas here on Service Canada Labs. Stay tuned!