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