Aims & Principles
The Citizens Advice service provides free, independent, confidential and impartial advice to everyone on their rights and responsibilities. It values diversity, promotes equality and challenges discrimination.
The service aims:
To provide the advice people need for the problems they face and
To improve the policies and practices
that affect people’s lives.
Chair’s Report
It gives me great pleasure to once again introduce the annual report in what has been a challenging year for the Bureau as the welfare reforms have continued to hit the poorest people hard. There has been little change to the main issues where clients have sought advice with debt, housing and benefit queries and employment problems once again dominating the picture. Due to the changes in legislation there is very often little that can be done to help clients, which is a cause of great frustration to staff in what can often be distressing situations. The number of clients requiring language support has continued to rise which has also lead to pressures of the service.
In a year where it was anticipated that the level of funding would be significantly reduced I am pleased to report that this did not happen and I would like to record my thanks once again to all our funders. It is only through their continuing support that Bradford and Airedale CAB can maintain its delivery of high quality services and sustain a strong financial position.
One of the main concerns during the year was to ensure that the numbers of clients seen in 'Open Door' sessions was maximised. I am extremely grateful to the management team for addressing this issue which has dramatically reduced the numbers of clients turned away because full capacity has been reached. Change is rarely welcome and can be stressful but the whole staff team have worked together on this which has strengthened the team . My thanks go to them all for 'sticking with it' and maintaining their focus on the needs of the clients.
We have a dedicated group of staff and volunteers who work at the Bureau and who often go beyond what is expected of them. Trustee Board members are also volunteers and give their time and expertise to ensure that the Bureau is well governed. Thank you one and all for your part in the continuing success of Bradford and Airedale Citizen's Advice Bureau.
I believe the forthcoming year is going to be at least as challenging as the previous one but the values of CAB will help us to provide the advice people need for the problems they face.
Sue Longbottom
Chair Bradford and Airedale CAB
Chief Executive’s Report
2012/13 was a positive year for Bradford and Airedale CAB, we secured all of our major contracts and added some new smaller projects. The focus for the year was one of preparation for significant changes, 2013/14 will see significant changes in the Welfare System. Internally 2013/14 also brings huge changes with us adopting a new electronic case management system. We have been using our current case recording system for the last 8 years and it is becoming increasingly unreliable and very constraining on our development. Citizens Advice has commissioned a new system called Petra which we will be moving to in April 2013 in the run up to this we have the significant job of retraining 150 staff.
Given the current economic climate we, along with most other voluntary sector agencies, have been very concerned about funding. We have been fortunate that all of our funders have recognized the value of the services we provide and have continued to fund us at similar levels to 2011/12. I would like to thank our funders for this continued support in what is a very difficult time for everyone. 2012/13 will also be a challenging year in relation to funding, our MAS contract is due to end on the 31 March 2013 and our council funding is subject to a new procurement process. It is essential that the bureau continues to provide high quality services and continues to show the outcome of our interventions on clients lives.
Despite the above uncertainty the service went from strength to strength during the year, we provided services from our 3 main offices and 23 outreach venues around the District. We have staff specializing in Debt and Welfare Benefits advice and staff supporting specific groups of clients for example those with Mental Health Issues, older people and clients with Physical Disabilities.
The demands on the service have increased dramatically over the last 12 months, the economic downturn has meant that the need for debt and benefits advice has increased significantly. In addition to this the deprivation faced by client has also increased, meaning that many of the cases we deal with are at a critical stage and we are having to find solutions for clients who are destitute or have increasingly complex problems.
I would like to thank all the paid and voluntary staff for their hard work over the last 12 months. Without their commitment it would be impossible to provide the high quality service to clients.
The organization continues to work in partnership with a variety of different funders including:
Bradford Metropolitan District Council continue to give us significant levels of funding to enable us to provide open door and generalist appointment services at our Bradford, Shipley and Keighley offices.
Andy Taylor Chief Executive
BRADFORD AND AIREDALE CITIZENS ADVICE BUREAU
DIRECTORS’ AND TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2013
• Bradford and Airedale PCT continue to fund a Health Plus Adviser to work in six GP Surgeries. The service is well used and more people used the session at Bevan House, a health service for homeless people and asylum seekers based in the City centre.
• Bradford and Airedale PCT funds an Adviser to work in six GP Surgeries. Again the client satisfaction survey found a high degree of satisfaction with the service.
People valued seeing an adviser in the familiar setting of the surgery when they were often too ill to travel to the main CAB office.
• Bradford and Airedale PCT funds two Community Mental Health Advisers to provide advice to people supported by Community Mental Health teams at Somerset House in Shipley and Meridian House in Keighley. This funding also enables us to provide advice to patients at Airedale Hospital Mental Health Unit and Roshni Ghar Asian Women’s support centre.
• Social Services fund an Older People’s Advocate, based at our Shipley CAB office. The Advocate works closely with Social Services and the Police around prevention of abuse of older people. This has led to increased referrals from the Vulnerable Adults Unit of people who have been physically, mentally or financially abused.
• Bradford District Care Trust, through Bradford Council’s Department of Adult and Community Services, continued to fund a Mental Health Adviser to provide advice to people supported by the Community Mental Health teams at City and South & West in Bradford. This includes outreach at the Horton Park Centre, home visits and appointments at the bureau.
• The Legal Services Commission fund a Debt adviser for people eligible for Legal Help.
• BIS, through Citizens Advice, fund our Face to Face Debt advice project, which employs 11 caseworkers to deliver debt advice to the financially excluded. This project has had a significant impact on our work and has allowed us to help a large number of additional clients.
• Working Neighbourhood Fund supports our outreach works in Children’s Centre’s in Keighley, our Council Tax Debt adviser and telephone advice
• British Gas Energy Trust fund 2 caseworkers to undertake Energy advice in Bradford, Shipley Keighley and Calderdale.
• Warm Homes Health People and Bradford and Airedale PCT fund a project to provide targeted advice and information about welfare issues facing people during the winter months.
We are grateful to all our funders whose continued support enables us to provide a valuable service to the local community. We are mindful of the difficulties for funders in the current economic climate. We are particularly grateful to those organizations and individuals who donate money to the Bureau.
Andy Taylor Chief Executive
The Generalist Service
During this year we have seen the numbers of people seeking help increasing and the demand for the service continues to be very high. The continuing economic difficulties have presented significant problems for the people we advise and we are dealing with more and more complex enquiries.
As you may be aware, the bureau holds a strong position of trust across all communities across the District and we have seen increasing demand from some of the newer Eastern European communities now living here. We have recruited volunteers from these new communities to help with language issues and to ensure that we fully reflect the community we work in. We have also provided training to help staff develop cultural awareness and understanding and to make sure that the service and the advice we provide meets the needs of the people we assist.
The Bradford, Shipley and Keighley offices remain busy. The small paid staff team and dedicated volunteers continue to provide the public with a high quality service. The focus of this year has been to enable as many clients as possible to self-help, where they can, to allow us to target support at those in most need.
The telephone advice service remains in extremely high demand and we would like to develop this service over the coming year.
The generalist team deals with a wide range of enquiries and does so under extreme pressure. The drop in sessions can be dealing with a variety of problems and can be highly driven by tight deadlines. This does mean that the team have to be highly responsive and make decisions quickly. The advisers need to keep on top of training and updating themselves on all the latest changes in law.
We have seen changes in sickness benefits through the introduction of Employment Support Allowance. Each change of a benefit or a change of a benefit rule/regulation is something new that an adviser has to learn and be aware of in order to make sure that clients receive a high quality advice service.
The commitment to on-going training has never been more important and the advisers are preparing for this in the forthcoming year. We are extremely aware that the planned Government changes to the legal help scheme and Welfare reform bill will have a major impact. The service is preparing for big changes ahead not only to best support clients through this difficult time but also to ensure best use of our resources in the hectic period ahead.
Debt and Money Advice at the Bureau
The debt and Money Advice Service has undergone major changes over the last year.
Although we were successful in being refunded, this meant an increased number of clients to be seen and changed work practices. We recognised that the demand for good quality, free debt advice is growing in the city, due to the impact of the recession, increased unemployment and people in low and insecure employment, and we are struggling to meet this demand. More people needed help. However all our advisers were already working at capacity and beyond and we could not continue to deliver the same level of service to an increased amount of people. So we have had to completely change the way we deliver our debt service. We did this in the following ways:
We developed a dedicated telephone advice service for debt advice issues staffed by debt advice workers. This meant we could reach more people easily from their own homes, and in some situations, we could assist the client to deal with their debt problem without the need for them to come for face to face advice.
This has been a great success.
We have had to accelerate the work we were already doing in terms of self-help.
We ensure that clients take some steps in dealing with their debt situation themselves, rather than taking over their case. We also assess whether the client is capable of self-help and where the client has access to the computer; we help them access useful information and online tools to allow them to manage their own debt situation.
Our admin workers have taken over many roles previously done by our debt workers. This ensures that the debt workers are freed up to concentrate on seeing clients about their debt issues.
We ensure that a debt worker is attached to most of our generalist drop in session, so they can quickly deal with clients who come in faced with urgent issues such as disconnections, evictions, court or bailiff action. If we can deal with issues on the day, this reduces the pressure on the client and ensures that we do not have to use appointment slots which could be days or weeks away.
We try to ensure that clients who come to our drop in session are seen by the person who has the most experience in a particular subject area where possible.
This matches skills and knowledge and provides the client with a better service.
We have continually reviewed and streamlined our debt systems to try and ensure we are working in the most efficient way.
The above changes have meant a lot of time, effort and commitment invested from everyone: from the debt advisers, the generalist service and also the admin workers. It is to their testament that these changes have happened. As a result we managed to 2844 new debt client enquiries, compared to 1624 from the previous year, an increase of 43%.
This is work in progress as we are being asked to meet increasing numbers in the next year. However trying to meet these new requirements has created many challenges, not least the worry that quantity will affect quality, as time pressures become ever more tight. We know that people’s debt problems are becoming more complex, rarely do we see somebody who has a single debt issue, or where a straight forward restructuring of debt payments is the best option for the client.
Many clients may have additional support needs, because for example, they have significant health issues, they do not speak English, or English is not their first language, or they are facing difficult times in their lives, such as bereavement. In these cases we often struggle to provide the in depth service that we believe they need.
Debt Relief Orders (DRO), a form of insolvency, continues to be the best and most appropriate form of relief from debt problems for many clients, and is one of the most common remedies. However these must be done by experienced and accredited debt workers, called Approved Intermediaries (of which we have 11 in the bureau) but they involve a lot of work as the whole process is done electronically and there is no room for error. On average we estimate one routine DRO can take 8 hours adviser time, in complicated cases many more. We successfully completed 150 DRO’s this year alongside all the other debt work.
We worry that these huge competing demands is taking its toll on advisers and that the demands of the new contracts squeezes out other necessary work such as social policy, training and other ways in which staff ensure that they continue to provide an up to date an high quality service.
The massive impact of welfare reform already begun, and the incoming ‘bedroom tax’, Council Tax Reduction schemes and benefit cap due in the next year will only serve to increase the pressure on our services and our most important future challenge will be meeting the increased need, providing good quality appropriate debt services, and retaining our staff to provide what is needed.
Energy Advice Service
Our Energy Advice Service, funded by the British Gas Energy Trust, continued this year, starting its second year of funding in July 2012. Our Energy Advisers supported 111 clients with applications to the Trust for financial assistance and essential household goods by the end of March, securing a total of £45,576.62 of financial gains in this period.
Three families without the means to cook hot food were supplied with a cooker with funds from the Trust, and one client who had been without electricity for almost two years had his supply restored and his payment issues resolved due to the intervention of our advisers.
We worked with a wide range of local partners to enable access across the district to this service for those in our communities who are most in need, taking referrals from organisations including Halifax, Hebden Bridge and Calderdale CAB, Age UK, Disability Advice Bradford, and many children’s centres and other local advice and community organisations.
Legal Services Commission Debt Advice
Following the government announcement of cuts to the Legal Aid budget, we lost our debt advice post in March 2013. However, during the year 146 new cases were opened in the period from April 2012 to January 2013 when the last cases could be started prior to the end of the contract.
As the impact of recession continues, the demand for debt advice increases and the loss of this post will impact on our capacity to respond. We anticipate that planned welfare reforms through 2013 could also impact clients’ financial stability and the need for financial advice and debt support across the district.
Council Tax and Debt Project
The Council Tax Project has gone from strength to strength, since it was first established. The Council Tax Department, especially the enforcement officers, and bailiffs have seen the real benefits of working in partnership with the Citizens Advice Bureau. The project takes a holistic approach in dealing with client enquiries, identifying benefits, relevant debt strategies and appropriate challenges, raising disputes with fees and charges etc. To illustrate the success of challenging and complaining about bailiffs fees the following case study clearly highlights the success the project has achieved:
“Client was a married owner occupier referred by Bradford Council Tax due to the significant levels of Council tax outstanding from the current year and from previous years. The case had been referred to external bailiffs to seek recovery of balances.
The client had severe depression and was unable to work. His partner was his main carer and worked part time to pay the bills. They received a low income plus tax credits and some council tax benefit. The external bailiffs wanted the clients to pay £450 per month to clear the balance of £4,800. The clients couldn’t afford this.
We used guidance from the National Standards for Enforcement Agents to highlight to the bailiffs that the client was vulnerable due to his mental illness. At our request, the bailiffs referred the case back to the local Council Tax office and sent us full details of the case. This included a copy of a Walking Possession agreement, a legal document which must be signed by the client and the bailiff, and a Notice of Seizure which listed the items that the bailiffs had identified to seize. The list included two cars. The client was unaware of this paperwork as he’d not been given a copy. He didn’t have a driving licence and didn’t own the vehicles.
We wrote to the bailiffs and argued that they should have checked that the client owned the cars and given the client a copy of all the paperwork. We successfully challenged the procedures used by the bailiff to take over ownership of the client’s goods and obtained refunds of the bailiff’s fees, which the client used to offset against the CT arrears. We helped the client to make realistic payments towards the current bill and the arrears. We ensured that the client claimed all the benefits they were entitled to and helped deal with their full debt situation.
The client said he felt overwhelmed and happy that we’d negotiated a payment offer that he could afford and that he no longer had to deal with the bailiff company.
Volunteers
Volunteers continue to be instrumental to our work and the delivery of effective advice services. In 2012-13 overall, 135 volunteers worked with us in roles ranging from advice, reception and administration and IT support; 50 of those were recruited during the year.
In October we introduced Volunteer Induction Workshops, now held approximately quarterly. These sessions complement the individual induction and training received by each volunteer and add a group element to their induction. The aim is to provide a formal welcome to the bureau and give new and recently recruited volunteers a forum in which to hear from key staff in the bureau about how their path through the comprehensive training process will work, the contribution volunteers make to our ability to deliver a good service, and discussions about the challenges and rewards they might expect from volunteering with the CAB.
As the year drew to a close we were preparing to provide training for all volunteers in forthcoming welfare reforms and our new case management IT system being introduced in April. Most volunteers put in additional time to attend training and we appreciate their commitment and flexibility in responding to the changes and challenges faced by the bureau and being central in our ability to meet them.
Reflections from Christine – advice volunteer at Bradford office
“When I retired from my job as a teacher and adult education tutor, I was keen to spend some of my time volunteering and particularly somewhere where I could use my brain and hopefully be useful. After looking in a number of areas I thought that volunteering with Citizens Advice would be both interesting for me and somewhere I could hopefully help others. I did not previously know much about what CAB did, but after my husband had done some work at one of the offices and told me about it, I looked it up on line and found it all very interesting. I started as a volunteer in May 2012 and my experiences have been even better than I hoped.
Although there has been a lot to learn, it has been good to know that there is always someone I can go to for help and support. Everyone at the Bradford bureau has been very friendly and extremely welcoming. The work has been really varied and I have learnt a lot, both from my studies, the courses I have been on and the cases I have advised on.
As a generalist adviser I am continually learning but when I am able to put this into practice and see the appreciation of the clients it makes it all worthwhile. It is great to feel that both clients and the staff at the bureau recognise the value of the work of the volunteers and are willing to acknowledge it.”
Welfare Rights Casework
The Welfare Rights Adviser provides a specialist advice service to clients on all aspects of entitlement to welfare benefits, including appeals. The adviser also provides consultancy and training on benefit issues to staff and volunteers.
This year, the largest proportion of cases dealt with by the WRA have continued to be ESA appeals where unwell and/or disabled clients have been found fit for work following a medical assessment. These clients come to see us at what is often a very stressful and difficult time. Many feel that they are not fit to do any work as a result of their medical conditions or disabilities and can be shocked and distressed at the result of the assessment. Many clients feel that they are not believed and are being accused of being dishonest. They also face a prolonged period on reduced income as ESA is paid at a lower rate pending the outcome of the appeal. Due to the very large numbers of appeals, it is not uncommon for people to wait for a year for a final decision to be made and arrears paid.
The Welfare Rights Adviser helps clients in these circumstances by helping them to collect medical or other evidence to substantiate their case and by preparing a detailed written submission to the tribunal. The success rate is high with some clients who were found fit for all work by the DWP being placed in the support group by the tribunal.
The following case study illustrates the problems our clients face when dealing with an ESA appeal:
The client is a man in his early 60s. He suffers from severe arthritis affecting all of his joints and had to stop work due to this. He has an indefinite award of the higher rate of the DLA mobility component and uses this to pay for an adapted Motability car. He appealed against the decision that he was fit for work in January 2012 and approached us for help. The WRA discussed his case with him in detail and helped him to obtain supporting medical evidence. A submission was written and sent with the evidence but the appeal wasn’t heard until September 2012. By this time, the client was struggling to pay his bills due to his reduced income and needed to be referred for debt advice.
The client won his appeal and was placed in the support group. He said that he was very pleased and relieved as he had been having sleepless nights worrying about the appeal and how he would manage financially if he lost. This should have been the end of his problems but, two months after the hearing, he contacted us to say that he was still waiting for his arrears and for his ESA payments to be increased. It took another month, several phone calls to the DWP and a letter of complaint before the client’s ESA was finally sorted out and he received an extra-statutory payment to compensate him for the delay and poor administration.
Outreach in Children’s Centres Keighley M
Our outreach work across four Children’s Centres in Keighley continued this year.
Generalist advisers held weekly appointments at Strong Close, Rainbow, Low Fold and Highfield Children’s Centres, helping clients with a wide range of issues.
The largest enquiry area was Benefits, followed by Debt. Overall, the total financial gain identified and confirmed by advisers came to £885,272.70, providing a significant contribution to the economic wellbeing of families with young children across the Keighley area.
In common with the CAB, the Children’s Centres also experienced an increase in demand from Slovak-speaking clients in the area. In partnership with Bradford’s Education Service for New Communities and Travellers, this led to the resourcing of a Slovak interpreter attending the Keighley bureau on a monthly basis to assist Children’s Centre clients access our advice services. In addition, an adviser and interpreter from the Education Service hold a monthly outreach drop-in session at the Keighley bureau to advise clients from Eastern and Central European communities on issues relating to their children’s education and school places. We appreciate how working together has helped us respond to changing needs and enable greater access to advice and support.
Case Study
The c
lient is aged 48, single and has two dependent children. She received a letter from DWP stating that she had an overpayment of Job Seekers Allowance of around£320 which they wanted her to repay. She said that when she first claimed Job Seekers Allowance she told them that she was currently working but had been given notice and wanted her JSA claim to start when the notice period ended. The client could not understand why she had an overpayment. We established that JSA had been for the period before her notice period had ended. We helped the client challenge the DWP decision. The DWP changed their decision and decided that the overpayment was no longer recoverable.
The client also had arrears with Yorkshire Water. We assisted her to complete an application to the Yorkshire Water Trust which was successful. They awarded her £420 which cleared her Yorkshire Water debt.
The client’s Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit had also been reduced because HMRC were not aware that her daughter had continued with further education. We assisted the client with this and she received backdated Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit of £380.
As a result of this advice and assistance the client was better off by £1,120.
Outreach in GP Surgeries - Keighley
As GP outreach worker in Keighley, I continued to offer advice to users of GP practices in the Silsden/Steeton, Haworth and Ilkley areas.
There has been a major disruption to the Silsden service due to reconstruction of the Silsden Medical Practice building that began early this year. The CAB service was initially moved to the Daisy Chain children's centre next door and then to the Steeton Medical Practice at the end of July 2013. We are hoping for a period of stability at Steeton Practice so that clients can feel secure that an uninterrupted CAB service is available to them. Construction of the new Silsden Medical Practice is not expected to be completed until sometime in 2014.
Clients sought advice from the GP outreach Adviser on a variety of issues including debt, employment, relationship issues and welfare benefits. Benefit changes continued to affect clients and a number came to outreach for advice on appealing benefit decisions. This seemed to be most evident for those clients converting from Incapacity Benefit to Employment and support allowance. Clients came for help in appealing decisions that they were not eligible for ESA on conversion and on their placement into the work related support group (where claimants are required to participate in work focus interviews and work related activity). The time limiting of 365 days for those in receipt of contribution based ESA in the work related group also affected clients.
Even before the legal help cut backs which have meant that clients on low incomes cannot get free legal help with welfare rights appeals, I have had clients requesting help with appeals. As a result, I have assisted vulnerable clients with gathering medical evidence and with writing letters in support of their appeals. In one case, I helped a client appeal against a decision to place him in the work related group on conversion from Incapacity Benefit to Employment and support allowance. This client has severe mental health issues to that he cannot cope with any kind of social interaction or changes to his routine. Therefore, he is not able to take part in work related activity.
I explained the appeal process to his carer, helped her gather medical evidence and wrote a letter to argue that the client met at least one of the descriptors to satisfy the limited capability for work related assessment. This client's appeal was successful so that he has been placed in the support group of Employment and support allowance where he is not required to take part in work related activity.
Further restrictions in welfare benefits have come into place during the new financial year notably restrictions on housing benefit for those clients living in social housing properties that considered too large for them. This has affected many clients. As more benefit changes come into effect e.g. universal credit, I expect the work as a GP outreach worker to remain challenging.
GP Outreach in Bradford
Bradford and Airedale Primary Care Trust have commissioned us for several years to provide outreach advice sessions in 12 GP surgeries across the District. This year, following NHS restructuring, a new commissioning body, Bradford and Airedale Clinical Commissioning Group have replaced the Primary Care Trust and have continued to fund this service. The aim of the advice sessions is to address the deleterious effects on people’s health of social and economic factors such as poverty, disadvantage and social exclusion. The advantage of providing the service in GP surgeries is that the sessions can be accessed by clients who might find it difficult to travel to the city centre, or to cope with the busy environment at our main bureaux. This might be for health reasons, child care problems or caring responsibilities. Thus, for example, our advisers see relatively high numbers of clients with physical or mental health problems or disabilities, lone parents of younger children, and carers.
Informal feedback from clients indicates a high level of satisfaction with the service, the accessible venues, and the outcomes of the advice received. These include increased income, enabling clients to manage their household budgets more easily, and health benefits such as reduced anxiety and stress. One client reported that she could “sleep better at night” after seeing the adviser.
Over the past year clients have come to GP outreach appointments for help and advice about a range of issues including welfare benefits, debt, employment, housing, and family issues such as divorce and separation
A significant number of enquiries have related to changes in the welfare benefit system.
The transfer of Incapacity Benefit claimants (and those on income support based on incapacity for work) on to Employment and Support Allowance has continued. Many clients have come for advice after they’ve failed the work capability assessment and been told they’re not entitled to ESA. Others have found themselves placed in the ESA work-related activity group, with a requirement to participate in work-related activities, and have come for advice about challenging the decision. A further change this year has been the introduction of a 12 month time limit for many people who get ESA based on their National Insurance record (ie not means tested). Clients have come for advice about disputing these decisions.
Others who have appealed benefit decisions have experienced increased financial hardship due to the long delays in the appeal system, and have come for advice about how to cope on their reduced income.
Further major changes are to be introduced over the coming year. Personal Independence Payments will replace Disability Living Allowance; the Localism Act will lead to cuts in Council Tax benefit; tenants in social housing will have their Housing Benefit reduced if they are found to be occupying a property with too many bedrooms for their household; the Social Fund becomes the responsibility of the local Council and Universal Credit will bring about the biggest change to benefits for many years. Advisers at GP outreaches have seen many clients who have received letters in advance of these changes, or seen reports in the media, and are worried or confused about what will happen to them. Advisers have undertaken training on these forthcoming changes, and have kept up-to-date with the issues in this fast changing environment, in order to advise these clients about how they might be affected. The demand for advice in our GP outreaches is already high, and we expect it to increase significantly in future years as a result of these wide ranging changes.
Case Study
The client was a man in his fifties with a complex degenerative medical condition, causing multiple disabilities. He was unable to work but not entitled to means tested benefits as he and his wife had savings which were over the capital limit. He claimed ESA and was placed in the work-related activity group. This meant that, despite his serious disability, he was expected to carry out work-related activities; and also that he could only get benefit for 12 months, as after that time, entitlement would be means tested. The adviser identified that the client’s disabilities were such that he should have been placed in the support group, and helped him to request that the decision be superseded. The request was eventually successful. This meant that the client did not have to undertake work-related activity, and his entitlement would continue after the 12 month limit. The adviser further assisted the client to claim Disability Living Allowance, and he was awarded High rate mobility component and Middle rate care component.
His wife was able to claim Carer’s Allowance for looking after him. As a result of the adviser’s help, the couple’s income was increased by almost £170pw, and this would continue for the foreseeable future. Their worry about losing benefit after 12 months was reduced, and they felt better able to cope with the extra expenses associated with living with a disability.
Mental Health Outreach
We are commissioned by Bradford and Airedale Primary Care Trust to provide advice to people with severe and enduring mental health problems across the District. We provide regular advice sessions at Mental Health Resource Centres in Bradford, Keighley and Shipley, at Roshni Ghar in Keighley and at Airedale Hospital Mental Health Unit. Clients are referred to the 3 Mental Health Caseworkers by Community Mental Health Teams or may self-refer at some the Centres.
We provide an outreach session for 2 days a week at The Airedale Centre for Mental Health which is two wards for psychiatric patients within Airedale General Hospital.
Usually the clients are quite ill at first and then progress to better mental health which can take anything from weeks to a year or more. Clients are either sectioned under the Mental Health Act or under voluntary section. Benefit advice makes up a huge part of the service delivered at the Centre. Clients who are admitted usually need help to change their benefit from Jobseekers Allowance to Employment and Support Allowance. Some clients are not in receipt of any benefits at all as they have been homeless and very ill before being sectioned and they need help to make an initial claim for benefits
Discretionary Support Payments also come in very handy here as a lot of the long term patients who are ready to leave hospital, also need some or sometimes all of their household goods replaced. We have had a good degree of success with applications.
We also have access to an excellent and very willing charity who allows clients who live in the Keighley area with grants of up to £350.
There are also a fair amount of debt issues, which are referred to the Money Workers after any emergencies are dealt with..
At Roshni Ghar the adviser deals with women who have mental health issues or are the carers of people with mental health issues. Here it is also largely benefit issues with debt being a close second.
Meridian House is part of the Airewharfe Community Mental Health Services and here clients are referred through their Psychiatrist, Social Worker, Support Workers and Community Psychiatric Nurses. The issues dealt with here are also mostly benefits issues, which we try and resolve on the day, but will support further if the need arises.
Debt is sometimes also a contributing factor in the client’s mental health.
We have been working with a single father with 2 small children who was referred through Meridian House, for a while now. We have assisted him in maximising his benefit income, with finding and moving to suitable Social Housing, obtaining household items he needed and clothes for the children. We also put him in touch with Children’s Social Services who support and advise him with regards to the children. We made sure he registered the children with all the relevant agencies and GP and dentist. We are still supporting him as he has ongoing issues.
Advocacy for Older People
The Advocate provides advice and advocacy to people over sixty who need help to live independently at home and with the problems they face in their lives and support with community care issues The Advocate primarily works with people who are too ill or frail to come to the bureau and who have no family to help them or where they may be in dispute with their family. The Advocate sees all clients in their own homes, includes sheltered housing, care and nursing homes and in hospital. Many clients are very elderly or frail or have dementia.
Social Services Referrals – these referrals have often involved help with care choices.
We’ve had a growing number of referrals from hospital based social workers to discuss care choices when clients leave hospital or to ensure the care is safe & suitable.
Debt – we are still dealing with a lot of debt cases e.g. where a client may not be paying the husband’s care home fees. Often, the client has the money but the debts have arisen because they haven’t been able to make payments. We have set up direct debits or other payment schemes that clients can manage, to resolve these problems.
Financial – giros are being phased out and more people have to access their benefits via a Simple Payment cards. This is causing significant problems for some clients who can’t activate their cards online or who encounter a range of problems when they try to withdraw their benefits.
Appointees – we’ve dealt with a number of queries about this. The client may want to change the Appointee because the relationship has broken down or there is suspected financial abuse. We’ve helped people assess whether to use an Appointee or to apply for Power of Attorney etc.
Safeguarding – cases have been referred where there are allegations or suspicions of financial abuse. We help put systems in place to protect the clients’ money, to ensure their bills are paid & that they can access their money. End of life plans – we’ve continued to help people make end of life plans so their wishes are made known.
Problems accessing bank accounts – older people continue to find it difficult to access the money in their bank accounts. They may not be able to physically go to the bank, they cannot deal with telephone or online banking, many can’t remember the information needed to get through the security questions. Debt Advice for Older People: we continue to see many older people with significant levels of debt. The Advocate acts as a link between these clients and debt advisers based at Shipley CAB.
Warm Homes/British Gas Energy Trust: We’ve had cases referred from these two projects of people struggling to manage their fuel bills. All the clients had health problems, they were often not claiming the benefits they were entitled to and were unaware of care services they could access to help them. We helped them claim a range of benefits which enabled them to afford fuel bills. We also gave them information on the care help available to them.
Warm Homes, Healthy People Project
From November 2012 to March 2013 we were commissioned by Bradford Council to provide advice on debt and income maximisation to people in fuel poverty who were at risk of death or ill health during the winter months.
Fuel Poverty is defined as households that spend 10% or more of the household income on heating the home. The groups of people who have been found to be at risk when the weather becomes cold are those on a low income and living in ‘deprived financial circumstances’; people in housing need i.e. homeless or sleeping rough or living in cold, damp homes; older people, disabled people and households where a member of the household is pregnant or contains children under 5 years.
Bradford Council’s Warm Homes initiative aims to tackle fuel poverty through agencies working together in a co-ordinated approach. Carers Resource was commissioned to promote the Warm Homes project across the District and to set up a website to take referrals. Inn Churches were commissioned to provide practical support in the form of bedding, cookers and heaters; Bradford Environmental Action Trust was commissioned to provide energy advice and advice on switching suppliers. We all helped produce a leaflet about these commissioned services and other services available to households i.e free smoke alarms from the Fire Service, family support organisations and help for carers from Carers Resource.
CAB received a total of 298 referrals to the project. We did an assessment interview with everyone we were able to contact. We found that many people did not qualify for the scheme or declined our support or did not attend their interview. However, 118 people did come to a face to face appointment and we were able to provide significant help to tackle the fuel poverty and associated problems they faced, as the following case study illustrates:
The client is single and has severe depression and physical disabilities. She wanted a prepayment meter installed to make it easier for her to budget for her fuel but she kept missing the installation engineers or they didn’t come when arranged. We helped arrange another installation date and for her support worker to have a telephone call half hour before they were due to arrive to make sure she would be there too. We obtained £300 from the ANTP Fuel Debt fund and £600 from the NPower Trust to pay off her fuel debts. We applied to British Gas Energy Trust for a cooker as she didn’t have one in her flat. We arranged direct deductions for her water arrears as she was unable to remember to pay her bills. We also applied to Yorkshire Water Community Trust for money help pay off her water arrears of £650.
Social Policy Work
Campaigning for change is a key part of the work of the CAB service. This year the government has continued to implement an unprecedented programme of ‘Welfare Reforms’ which has had a significant impact on the clients we see.
‘Bedroom tax' was introduced for social housing tenants leading to reduced Housing Benefit for working age people with an extra bedroom. Council Tax Benefit was replaced by localised Council Tax Reduction schemes and working age people in Bradford were required to pay 25% of their Council Tax bill. Personal Independence Payments replaced Disability Living Allowance for new claims. Parts of the Social Fund were abolished, including Community Care grants and Crisis Loans, and were replaced by Discretionary Support Payments run by the local Council. Lone parents were required to sign on for JSA when the youngest child became 5 years old.
These are just a few of the changes. Advisers have reported that the impact on clients has been a reduction in income, significant hardship and increasing debt. Many sick or disabled people claiming Employment Support Allowance have been found fit for work and required to claim Job Seekers Allowance. If they fail to comply with the Job Seekers Agreement they are sanctioned, their JSA stops and they have no income. We have seen young, vulnerable clients who have been sanctioned for up to 36 months. We hand out food parcels to individuals and families every day who face destitution.
At a time when increasing numbers of clients needed help to appeal these benefit decisions Legal Aid was cut and Bradford District lost over 600 ‘matter starts’ for specialist level benefits advice. As a result, over 600 people on low incomes could not get help with benefit appeals this year.
We have sent evidence on the impact of Welfare Reform to our social policy team in London who meet with government ministers and regulators. Our debt team’s evidence about the practices of the banking industry was quoted in Citizens Advice submission to the Financial Services Authority on ‘Packaged Bank Accounts’. Our evidence on
‘Consumer Issues in retail banking’ was also used in Citizens Advice evidence to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards.
At local level we contributed to consultation about good practice in Council Tax collection and enforcement and met with the team at Bradford Council who introduced the Council Tax Reduction scheme and Discretionary Support Payments. We regularly contribute to the Job Centre Plus Liaison group and the Housing Benefit/Council Tax Reduction meetings.
