Its Pensions Week

Pension Wise starts Tuesday  24th March

Pension Wise pensions guidance starts this week with the referral process opening on Tuesday and the first appointments available from Monday 30th.

Our local delivery partner is Caerphilly CAB who have booked an advice room in our Cwmbran Bureau every Friday from next week (w/c 30th March). Clients from Cwmbran and surrounding areas will be able to receive the guidance here on Fridays from Caerphilly CAB advisers.

Caerphilly CAB have promised to send us details today of their pensions work queue and telephone referral line AND a very simple to use (simpler than the Citizens Advice elearning) tool to triage the referrals.

Having said that every adviser will need to have completed the elearning.
https://beta.citizensadvice.org.uk/cablink/training/Training-to-work-with-clients/initial-check/booking-a-pension-wise-appointment/

New Starters

This week we welcome Sharmin Chowdhury to our advice trainee team. Welcome aboard Sharmin.

Building Work

Builders will be in our Cwmbran meeting room most of this week creating three advice rooms. The roms will be usable as the week progresses bu twill not be fully functional with desks, chairs, phones and comp[uters until the week after.

Bureau closure

The Bureau will next be closed for Easter on Good Friday 3^rd April, Easter Monday 6^th April and Tuesday 7^th April.

Feedback

I always welcome feedback from staff and volunteers, you can ring me on 01633 876128 send an email at mal.edgson@torfaencab.org.uk, write 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.

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

Spring time project changes

Changes in projects from 1st April

As we roll into a new financial year there will be some small changes to our funded projects. In exchange for dropping our commitment to run 'Managing Your Money' sessions we will be instead increasing our presence in outreach locations within Communities First areas. From 1st April we will be running an additional advice session on a Wednesday at TRAC2 in Trevethin and a day at the new Communities First offices at the Power Station in Green Meadow.

Please be prepared for some changes to the rotas which may also draw on the expertise of some of our more experienced volunteer advisers. We will make sure everyone affected is consulted.

Team Meeting

Special reminder today about the Team Meeting this Wednesday at 1pm in the Cwmbran Bureau

It will feature a session led by Alun Evans the Campaigns and Education Officer for Citizens Advice Cymru who will be talking to us, hopefully in an entertaining fashion, about the reasearch and campaigning areas for Citizens Advice and what we can do locally to support them.

There will also be a short training session about the Gateway procedure for the Pension Wise service and some exciting news about Cwmbran and Pontypool Bureau.

We will aim to finish before 4pm.

There will be some form of cake.

Pontypool & Cwmbran refurbishments

Work will start on 23rd March to build three advice rooms inside the meeting room area at Cwmbran, this will greatly relieve the pressure on rooms we experience some days and also allow us to bring in more additional services such as legal help, tax help for older people, etc. The work should be completed within a week.

We have also managed to upgrade the heating boilers at Cwmbran and increase their contol-ability, so we hope to save money as well as make sure the Bureau is warm on your arrival in the mornings.We are very grateful for the generous help given by Melin Homes with this.

We are also very pleased to announce a refurbishment of our Pontypool Bureau. Long the poor relation, this bureau is pretty dilapidated but serves a local community with high advice needs. We will be creating a reception area, converting the kitchen into a 4th advice room, improving the loos, replacing the floor and painting throughout. Melin Homes are very generously helping with this. We will also be installing a proper telephone system to replace the current DIY arrangements.We don't know timescales yet but it should all be in place by summer.

This strengthens our long term commitment to providing services to Pontypool and its communities.

Common Initial Assessment (CIA)

A reminder to all Gateway people and debt staff that the Common Initial Assessment must be implemented and used by 1/4/15, so any who have not had a practice please ensure you are comfortable to implement this by seeking help from Natalie if necessary.

New starters

This week we welcome Sophie Hall on to our advice team as a trainee

Bureau closure

The Bureau will next be closed for Easter on Good Friday 3^rd April, Easter Monday 6^th April and Tuesday 7^th April.

Feedback

I always welcome feedback from staff and volunteers, you can ring me on 01633 876128 send an email at mal.edgson@torfaencab.org.uk, write 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.

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

Fair Play for Pre Pay

Fair Play for Pre Pay

The Citizens Advice campaign around fair treatment of those households using pre payment meters for electricity and gas moves into a new stage with this excellent short video. Click below to have a look. Please circulate to your friends and other networks and raise Bureau Evidence Forms as appropriate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e__W0WRAYA

This week we welcome some more new volunteers.

Roger Peets joins us on the advice team and Vivienne Phillips, Kirsty Harris and Sammie Pike join the admin team. Fiona Cross joins us as a Board trustee. Welcome one and all, without our volunteers we would barely function as a Bureau and I cannot emphasise enough how grateful we are for your generous help.

Petra disruption expected Tuesday & Wednesday

Microsoft release their next security patch on Tue March 10th. Citizens Advice have implemented a series of measures to minimise the distruption to our network but it would still be reasonable to expect some interference as computers across the network attempt to download the patch simultaneously.

Team meeting - rescheduled

The next team meeting will take place on Wed 18^th March 1pm – 4pm and will focus on Citizens Advice research and campaign work with guest speaker Alun Evans from the Cymru campaigns team. All Bureau services will be closed that afternoon so that everyone can attend although the Shelter session will continue as normal. There will also be a session on the new Pensions Advice Gateway Assessment Tool.

Bureau closure

The Bureau will next be closed for Easter on Good Friday 3^rd April, Easter Monday 6^th April and Tuesday 7^th April.

Feedback

I always welcome feedback from staff and volunteers, you can ring me on 01633 876128 send an email at mal.edgson@torfaencab.org.uk, write 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.

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