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Top 10 Tips to Avoid A Christmas Debt Hangover

Every year Citizens Advice publish advice articles to help people navigate the festive period. you can download their 'debt hangover'' advice here

Well Worth It

Generalist adviser Clive saw a gentleman last week who's attempt to purchase a car had gone a little badly. The gentleman had visited a car dealer to buy a VW. He had intended to purchase the car outright but was persuaded by the salesman to take out a credit agreement and he signed over a non refundable deposit. On returning home the client changed his mind and asked the garage to cancel the agreement and refund the deposit. The dealership refused because he had signed to agree the deposit was non refundable. 

Following our advice the client used social media to complain to VW who responded with an apology and £500 in compensation. A second letter of complaint to the dealership led to the cancelling of the contract and the refund the deposit. Well done to our client for getting a great result, well done Clive for helping him get there and well done VW and the car dealership for doing the right thing in the end.

Staff & Volunteer engagement survey

Thank you to the 25 people who completed our questionnaire. The overall picture you painted of working for TCAB was very positive. Happy.co.uk the company who organise the survey congratulated us on another very strong result and for the third year running we exceeded the benchmark scores on every single factor measured.

But this year you were slightly less positive on issues around communication, management and pay. You told us that you felt that often we were not as organised as we should be, do not communicate as well as we could and did not innovate enough. Thank you for this feedback, please be assured that we get the message and will do our best to respond in these areas. 

The Local Government pay award (we follow their terms and conditions) has now been agreed and will be passed on as soon as the new scale points are available. Staff can view the details of the pay award here

Diary changes

Our new Frontline Advice project started at the beginning of November. Whilst it only involves two of our caseworkers directly in the delivery the knock on changes have made some difference to the working week of nearly everyone.

The seven different projects which account for the majority of the bureau's funding all require different combinations of specialism, experience and location. Balancing this with the skills of our adviser team both paid and voluntary sometimes presents a bit of a puzzle to achieve the best solution. we hope that we have settled on the right changes until march 2015 but there will inevitably be further changes then, potentially affecting everyone a second time although we will try and keep changes to a minimum.

The TCAB Christmas Bash

Over 30 staff and volunteers of the bureau joined together for our Christmas Meal at the Unicorn in Pontypool last Friday. It was a lovely afternoon for good food, good wine, good company and chat. It was great to spend time talking to some that I have not had the chance to talk to before as well as old friends and colleagues.

A special message goes out to the Secret Santa who chose my present. The vintage stilton is excellent. Good choice.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

This will be the last Blog before 2015 so I wish you all well and thank you for your hard work and generosity in 2014 and look forward to an even better 2015.

Feedback

I always welcome feedback from staff and volunteers, you can ring me up on 01633 876128 send me an email at mal.edgson@torfaencab.org.uk, write me a letter, comment on this blog, place your comment or suggestion in the comments box in the Cwmbran meeting room or come and see me.

Diary dates

Christmas closure: The Bureau will be closed from Mon 22nd Dec until Friday 2nd Jan inclusive. Staff are expected to take the period around the statutory holidays as annual leave as usual.


This Blog is prepared for the staff and volunteers of Torfaen Citizens Advice Bureau

The busiest of times

September 2014, our busiest month ever

September was perhaps the busiest ever month for TCAB. We dealt with 892 people across gateway, generalist and specialist appointments, telephones, webchat and email.

The previous highest monthly total being 823 in July and there is no doubt that we are seeing a steady growth in demand and, more importantly, in our ability to meet it.

Birthday Party - this Tuesday

We will be celebrating the Citizens Advice 75^th Birthday & the 50^th Birthday of our Pontypool Bureau on Tuesday 25th November. Join us at 3pm here at the Cwmbran Bureau we will be having Sandwiches, nibbles & cake and just celebrate the Bureau together.

People are invited to finish early at Pontypool and the outreaches to come and join in.

Energy Best Deal

Hats off to Natalie Hopkins this week for realising the potential of this scheme and registering the Bureau. Energy Best Deal will provide a small amount of funding to enable the bureau to undertake some group briefing sessions for local front line staff and to undertake energy reviews with up to 50 clients between now and March 2015. This is a very suitable opportunity for Gateway Advisers and Generalists alike so watch this space for the training opportunities shortly.

Team Meeting - this Wednesday

the final team meeting of 2014 will feature a session from energy best deal demonstrating how we can help our clients reduce their energy bills, we will have a session from Torfaen Families First who we are keen to join with in supporting the best wrap around support for families in the area. We will also have a session from Andrea showing us all how to correctly capture the advice issue codes on our case recording.

A gentle reminder about appointment forms

Please would staff and volunteers remember to properly complete client appointment forms ensuring the name of the caseworker is correct and that the client knows what information they need to bring with them to the appointment so they avoid a wasted journey.

Christmas Do...

Just a reminder that we will be closed this Friday afternoon for our Christmas celebrations. If you have not yet registered there may be the odd place left. Please contact Lisa Oates. We all need to be at the Unicorn in Pontypool by 1.30pm in your best festive jumpers.

Feedback

I always welcome feedback from staff and volunteers, you can ring me up on 01633 876128 send me an email at mal.edgson@torfaencab.org.uk, write me a letter, comment on this blog, place your comment or suggestion in the comments box in the Cwmbran meeting room or come and see me.

Diary dates

Christmas closure: The Bureau will be closed from Mon 22nd Dec until Friday 2nd Jan inclusive. Staff are expected to take the period around the statutory holidays as annual leave as usual.



This Blog is prepared for the staff and volunteers of Torfaen Citizens Advice Bureau

Time to give us some feedback

For the last two years we have asked all Employees, Volunteers and Trustees of Torfaen CAB to complete a short survey to let us know what its like to work with us.

In 2012 and 2013 we got extremely positive results from a small group of you. This group of around 20 staff, volunteers and trustees basically told us that they were very positive about TCAB. It was great news to know you thought we were on the right track.

This year we want to hear from all of you, warts and all (that's our warts, not your warts) because we want Torfaen CAB to be a great place to work and volunteer and if we are not hitting the mark we are relying on you to tell us.

The survey takes less that 5 minutes to complete. Please follow the link. Use code TC3 in the first box and leave the Department box Blank.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SBNCR9Z

The survey will close after two weeks and the results will be reported at our Team Meeting on Wed 26th November at 1pm

Diary Dates

Annual General Meeting: Friday 21 Nov, 3pm in the meeting room
Team Meeting 26 Nov 1pm
Christmas Meal: Friday 28th November, 1.30pm The Unicorn, Pontypool
Christmas closure: The Bureau will be closed from Mon 22nd Dec until Friday 2nd Jan inclusive. Staff are expected to take the period around the statutory holidays as annual leave as usual.

The Curious Problem with Social Policy

I always think that changing the world for the better should be an exciting thing to do. Large groups of like minded people, an intoxicating bond of common cause and scent of victory. It is curious then that our main link to the campaigning work of Citizens Advice is such a solitary activity.

The Bureau Evidence Form, or BEF for short, changes the world through hive behavior. Each tiny pollen like grain of evidence building a sticky and powerful story from which the policy maker cannot escape, and in the same way that bees know little of bread and butter, we are also largely ignorant about what happens to our BEFs once we have passed them on.

But we do know that bees make honey, that many hands make light work, that telling stories is powerful and that we have stories; stories that tell personal tragedies of wrongs that need righting and laws carelessly made. Stories that have changed lives by changing laws, laws about payday lenders, renting houses, the treatment of the disabled in the benefits system and more.

When we act locally the stories, along with their hero's and villains, are closer to hand, our influence more direct and, quite frankly the whole thing can be a bit more rewarding because we can do it together and take part in what is going on.

Currently we are doing two things:

1) We have told our local Job Centre's that they don't live up to their own standards. We told them that too often they were

• not taking into account people circumstances
• not taking into account peoples disabilities
• advising people incorrectly
• not doing simple things to help people
• being rude and disrespectful

We have met with them to discuss these issues and will be meeting with them again. We will raise issues anonymously with a named contact in each Job Centre as we come across them. We are hoping to change some local attitudes and local practices. Please keep the information coming.

2) We are also challenging the Local Authority to provide more child care in advance of the stricter requirement for young mums to work that Universal Credit will bring.

So here is my call to arms

• if you can see a local wrong that needs righting
• if you can identify the problem, the victim and the person locally who can do something about it 
• join in with a small group of staff, and volunteers in the Bureau and TOGETHER will see what can be done about it.

At our next Team Meeting on November 26th, Alun Evans from the Citizens Advice Cymru Campaigns Team will be coming to talk about the hot issues that Citizens Advice will be campaigning on. Please don't miss this opportunity to get involved in some local campaigning together.

Mal

Diary Dates

Annual General Meeting: Friday 21 Nov, 3pm in the meeting room
Team Meeting 26 Nov 1pm
Christmas Meal: Friday 28th November, 1.30pm The Unicorn, Pontypool
Christmas closure: The Bureau will be closed from Mon 22nd Dec until Friday 2nd Jan inclusive. Staff are expected to take the period around the statutory holidays as annual leave as usual.
Staff and volunteer satisfaction survey opens: Monday 3rd November

The Citizens Advice Social Policy Newsletter is produced monthly, you can subscribe to it, there is a link to the September edition on Cablink below

https://newsletter.citizensadvice.org.uk/display.php?M=23816&C=9648c90134eda5ac9ec0ea6caa709475&S=1238&L=3&N=807 

This Blog is prepared for the staff and volunteers of Torfaen Citizens Advice Bureau

The Adviser, the Shoes and the Unsung Hero's of TCAB

The story of Jill and the Shoes

It is not often the words 'advice' and 'shoes' crop up together, it rather conjures up images of those pseudo scientific devises they have in Clarks for measuring children's feet; but not last Thursday!

Jill saw a man who came to us for help because he had not received his benefits for the last 4 weeks. The problem was that the DWP claimed that benefits were being paid but they were not in the clients bank account. The man had been living on food parcels for weeks and as his shoes were literally falling apart it was a major barrier to finding work. 

Following lengthy and fruitless attempts to solve the clients problem on the DWP helpline and with the Discretionary Assistance Fund, Jill began ringing round local organisations looking for help getting new shoes for her client. She ended up talking to St Davids Foundation Charity Shop based in the shopping center. Within a few minutes Marilyn the Shop Manager had come to the Bureau with a selection of shoes for the client to try.

A happy client left with some great looking shoes, a food voucher and an appointment with our benefits team to get to the bottom of the problem. 

Great work going the extra mile Jill.

Some Unsung hero's

Our Bureau is full of unsung hero's, all happy to work hard supporting people in our local communities for the satisfaction that brings, for an occasional thank you from a client, and for some of us some wages thrown in as well.

We have much to thank our Admin Team for. From helping us make some sense out of Petra, resetting our passwords, processing client letters, looking after our files and fixing any number of little problems, we would not get on well without them.

This group have been quietly transforming the work they do over the last six months and three very significant changes have taken place that have improved our service to clients and made life easier for everyone in the Bureau. 

Our reception service is much improved; more informed, friendly, engaging and consistent it is all about preparing the client, the room and everything else around the adviser so the interview goes well.

The diary system is more harmonious, reliable, consistent and much easier to use

The transfer of our archive to an Electronic Archive is underway and will make files much easier to store and retrieve in the future, no more rooting around with the rats in the basement! At the moment all files are scanned on closure but in the time the team will be moving to virtually paperless client files.

The Admin Team are now supported by an increasingly skilled group of volunteers contributing to reception, admin and casework support who are generously donating 25 days a week of work to help our service run smoothly.

A big thank you to our wonderful and often overlooked Admin Team, keep up the good work

Diary dates

Annual General Meeting: Friday 21 Nov, 3pm in the meeting room
Team Meeting 26 Nov 1pm
Christmas Meal: Friday 28th November, 1.30pm The Unicorn, Pontypool
Christmas closure: The Bureau will be closed from Mon 22nd Dec until Friday 2nd Jan inclusive. Staff are expected to take the period around the statutory holidays as annual leave as usual.

This Blog is prepared for the staff and volunteers of Torfaen Citizens Advice Bureau

Worth your weight in gold?

Webchat contract extended

We received news this week that the Integrated Digital Money Advice pilot has been extended. Particularly pleasing was that the partnership of Cardiff &The Vale and Torfaen CAB's were recognised as one of the highest quality in this delivery and were awarded with 2 posts (most others got 1) extended until March 2015. Andrea will therefore be working on this more or less full time until then.

Case study

A good story this week about a gentleman with health issues, cognitive impairment and had undergone brain surgery. He asked us for help dealing with non priority debts. Token offers were made and accepted for 3 debts, and on 2 others we challenged the liability on the client’s behalf, stressing the timescales and severe health problems. We are pleased to report that after our involvement the creditors, one of which was HMRC, with debts totaling £10,000, agreed to waive any further action and were not pursuing the recovery. 

Our wonderful Volunteers

For me biggest change in the Bureau in the last few years has been that more and more people are choosing to come and volunteer with us. From as few as a dozen we are now more than a 60 strong group of generous and talented volunteers that are making a huge difference to the people of Torfaen, not least because we are now open almost twice as long as we were back in 2012. As well as our wonderful Volunteers we also have Dave to thank for the great job he has done nurturing this increasingly skilled team.

Our Volunteers are the heart of our Bureau and without you we would not be able deliver our more specialist projects or perhaps even open at all. In short it would not be possible without you. The generous, professional and caring service you provide to our clients cannot easily be expressed but it is worth noting that the value of the time you collectively donate each year can be estimated at around £200,000. The equivalent of 10 full time staff.

If you go on to calculate the effect on the Torfaen economy of our work we can estimate that we inject or prevent leakage of around £12m annually in benefit gains and debt management. Because most of this money will be spent very locally and very quickly, the effect of the economic multiplier means that every £1 we add to the local economy is worth around £1.58 taking into account the employment that spending generates and the effect on the profits of local suppliers. Therefore the overall stimulus to the Torfaen economy of Torfaen CAB, backed by its Volunteers, will be worth around £19m. 

So 10 people with an average UK weight of 75kg = 750kg. Gold is currently around £25,000 a kilo = £18.75m. 

Worth MORE than your weight in gold!



Mal

Diary Dates

Next Team meeting 26 Nov 1pm

New Funding Confirmed

Frontline Advice Services

I am very pleased, and somewhat relieved, to report that this week we received news that Torfaen CAB has been successful in its bid to provide benefits advice services to Torfaen, Newport and Monmouthshire as part of a £1.3m award to Citizens Advice Cymru by Welsh Government.

The project will fund 1.5 benefits advisers though until March 2017.

Our bid was made in partnership with Newport CAB who will be delivering Debt advice services across the same area. Our initial plans will involve a TCAB Benefits Advise working 2 days a week from Newport Bureau and vice-versa whilst both CAB's will deliver from the offices of the 4 CAB's across Monmouthshire.

Not only will this funding mean we can provide essential advice services across the areas it will also make a substantial contribution to the running of the bureau as a whole.

Communities First Grant extension
This week we submitted final paperwork to support Citizens Advice Cymru's application to extend our Communities First Outcomes project by one year through until March 2016. This will bring the project in line with the main Communities First award cycle. This project provides 2 advisers to provide generalist advice services in debt and benefits in outreach locations within Communities First areas across Torfaen

Integrated Digital Advice Grant extension
An opportunity to apply for an extension to the debt webchat project has become available. Whilst the number of funded contracts is smaller than in the main pilot we are optimistic that our joint application with Cardiff & The Vale CAB to fund a 0.5 worker each until March 2015 will be successful as both the advisers named in this application have performed well in the pilot period.

Discretionary Assistance Fund Training
This is the last call for this free course running shortly in Pontypool. The course is designed to help advisers support clients through an application to this fund, also known as DAF. Anyone interested should speak to Dave or Andrea for further information.

Information kiosk at Blaenavon

This week an infomration kiosk was installed in our Blaenavon outreach that will allow members of the public access to a range of local services as well as pay their rent. 

Since Torfaen Voluntary Alliance stopped staffing the center last month Torfaen CAB have exclusive use of this building which is open for drop in and appointments from 10 - 3.30 every weekday.

Feedback
I always welcome feedback from staff and volunteers, you can ring me up on 01633 876128 send me an email at mal.edgson@torfaencab.org.uk, write me a letter, comment on this blog, place your comment or suggestion in the comments box in the Cwmbran meeting room or come and see me.


Future dates
Annual General Meeting due to be held on Friday 10th October has had to be rescheduled. new dates will be available shortly.
Staff and volunteer satisfaction survey opens: Monday 3rd November

Mal

Introducing the One Service Strategy and other stories

The Future of Petra
Much has been said about the roll out of Petra in 2013. Whilst arguably it does its job it is criticised for being over complicated and unwieldy. Elements of its functionality cannot be used without crashing the system and there are problems with its data reporting.

Petra is scheduled to be superseded within two years when the software platforms on which is depends IE9 will no longer be supported. As part of Citizens Advice One Service Strategy we are promised intuitive technology that 'just works'. The One Service Strategy is a major strategic overhaul of the service and will cover important areas such as changes to the advice model and audit arrangements. You can get involved in the consultation by looking through the documents on the above link.


Team Meeting
This Wednesday was our quarterly team meeting. around 20 staff and volunteers gathered to receive briefings on Gateway Credit Union, achievements and progress of the Bureau, clients stories and successes, the One Service Strategy and New Advice Model as well as a live demonstration of how to raise a bureau evidence form on Petra.

The slides from the meeting can be viewed here

Client story of the week.
We helped an extremely distressed gentleman this week who faced losing his home and belongings because of delays in his application for Employment Support Allowance and knock on effects to his Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. Following our intervention the possession action and bailiff action were both suspended. The client was extremely relieved and appreciative.

Internet problems at Pontypool Bureau
For much of Thursday and Friday morning this week the internet connection into Pontypool Bureau went down. We were able to continue our normal service although advisers were forced to delay posting casenotes onto Petra. The fault was caused by a loose connection in the BT street box.

Training places available
TCAB has two vacancies for adviser training places in our debt and our benefits teams. Please contact myself, David or Andrea for further information and a copy of the 'opportunity profile'.


Valleys report
The Center for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University has released its report 'The impact of Welfare Reform in the Valley's. This is the first report to look down to a local authority ward level and it makes pretty grim reading demonstrating that in some districts the average loss of income per working age adult will be as high as £1000. Worst hit in Torfaen will be Trevethin with a loss of £850 per head per year. Overall £34 million will be removed from the Torfaen ecomony and across the valleys as a whole 3000 jobs will be lost as a result of the impact on disposable income.

You can read the full report here


Future dates
Annual General Meeting due to be held on Friday 10th October has had to be rescheduled. new dates will be available shortly.

Staff and volunteer satisfaction survey opens: Monday 3rd November

Taking the Pledge

This year is the 75th Birthday of Citizens Advice, to celebrate we have launched a campaign called Advice for the Future. The campaign asks the public to sign our pledge.

The public will be able to sign the pledge in our Cwmbran reception area and online here

Lynne Neagle, Welsh Assembly Member for Torfaen, came in to 'take' the pledge on Friday. Thanks Lynne, as a good friend of the Bureau your support is always appreciated.

Our Pontypool Bureau is also 50 years old this year.

Money Advice
Caerphilly CAB are able to offer staff and volunteers of TCAB advice about mortgages, savings options, retirement plans and insurance protection. Anyone wanting to take advantage of this please put your name down by emailing Lisa Oates

Adviceline just got cheaper
This month Adviceline Cymru changed from an 084 to an 034 number which makes it local rate from landlines and included in most bundles, calls from mobiles are charged the same as calls to a landline. Anyone wanting to know more about call costs generally can click here
Adviceline Cymru 03444 77 20 20

Training places
Next weeks Team Meeting will see the launch of our new adviser training process. Vacancies for trainees in our Debt, Benefits and Employment advice teams will be advertised as and when they are available and volunteers who can meet minimum requirements in terms of experience and committment are encouraged to apply. This is the latest in a series of improvements we are making to the structure and quality of our post gateway adviser training.

Opportunities for current training vacancies in our benefits and debt teams will be announced on Wednesday

Management Training
We are delighted to announce that a number of staff are now studying for supervisory and management NVQ's. We are committed to the development of our staff and volunteers and this is a very positive step towards becoming a more effective organisation. David Roberts, Lisa Oates, Andrea Thomas, Lynne Roynon and Allison Whitehouse are signed on to various programmes at NVQ levels 3, 4 and 5.

WiFi
Cwmbran Bureau now has WiFi and for your convenience we are happy to make this available to staff and volunteers on request for use in smart phones etc. The network is TCAB_JobClub and passwords are available from Lisa Oates. This network does not allow access into the Citizens Advice private network or Bureau servers.

Future dates
Team meeting: Wed 24 September 1 - 4pm in the Cwmbran meeting room
Employee/Volunteer engagement survey launch 3rd November 2014

Feedback
I always welcome feedback from staff and volunteers, you can ring me up on 01633 876128 send me an email at mal.edgson@torfaencab.org.uk, write me a letter, comment on this blog, place your comment or suggestion in the comments box in the Cwmbran meeting room or come and see me.

Thank you all for your hard work and generous support

Mal

Cycling proficiency

Fri 12th Sep 2014

Having spent so much of my time working in Higher Education, September has always seemed to be a good time for new resolutions and I will always associate this time of year with the cycle of the new academic year, the gathering of friends returning from the summer recess, excitement and anticipation.

Torfaen CAB is now an eighty strong organisation and time spent developing our community of staff and volunteers has got to be time well spent. This blog is one such new start.

The Bureau has stayed busy even through the summer, this week alone 230 people found their way though  our doors for help.

September sees the end of the Digital Advice Pilot. Andrea and Lynne, with a little help from Natalie and Allison have been giving debt advice by webchat to clients visiting the debt pages of Adviceguide. It has proved to be a very efficient way of providing extra help to people on the website and is engaging with different groups. It is definitely not a replacement for face to face but it certainly has its place. We are optimistic that following the success of the pilot we will be well placed to win one of the digital advice contracts we expect to become available in April 2015.

This week also marks the submission of bids to run the next round of advice projects and over the next few weeks we hope for the good news that our Communities First project, our Better Advice Better Lives our Housing Advice project, our Disability Benefits project and our bid to provide extra benefits advice across Torfaen, Newport and Monmouthshire will all be successful with funding guaranteed until at least 2016 and in some cases until 2018

We have had our disappointments too. The Money Advice Service discontinued the funding for our Debt project in Monmouthshire and Peter Day who worked on that project left us last week for a new position in Bristol. Peter was 10 years with the Bureau and we will miss him but we are delighted he has found a new start as well.

We have welcomed some new people too, the freshest of whom, Clive, joins us from Caerphilly CAB where has had performed a number of advice roles. On the eve of joining us Clive bagged the coveted Adviser of the Year award at CAB Conference. We are delighted you got some well deserved recognition and we are equally delighted to welcome you to TCAB. Welcome aboard Clive we hope you enjoy working here with us well into the future.

So in the spirit of some more new beginnings, the bids are in and the fingers firmly crossed as seven of our projects enter their next funding cycle. If all goes well we can expect a well deserved period of stability for an organisation that has taken some pretty big changes in its stride over the last year. Whatever the outcome we know we are a resilient organisation and powered by whiling and able people we will make the very best of what the new cycle of events offers.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the Team Meeting on 24 September 1pm in the Cwmbran meeting room.

Mal