ANNUAL REPORT 2009/2010. Improving Access

North East Derbyshire

Citizens Advice Bureau

ANNUAL REPORT

2009/2010

ADVICE

Improving Access

Responding to need

We provide free

,

independent, impartial and

confidential advice

face to face and by telephone for members of the public residing in the Districts of North East Derbyshire and Bolsover. Our face to face sessions are provided from over 20 locations across the

Districts (see the back cover for more details) we also have a dedicated telephone advice line. We are able to provide these services thanks to a range of funders and projects, details of which you will find elsewhere in this report.

This report is about trying to explain

our services to you and within it you will find

•

Information about our work

•

Our project work

•

Statistics about our clients

•

Statistics about our enquiries

•

Casestudies

•

How our work ties in with the

Local Area Agreement and

Community Strategies.

•

Our Social Policy work

•

Valuing our Volunteers

The Citizens Advice service provides free,

independent, confidential and impartial advice to everyone on their rights and responsibilities. We value diversity, promote equality and challenge discrimination. Our aims are to provide the advice people need for the problems they face, and to improve the policies and practices that affect people’s lives.

We do not intend to be complacent either and will continue to

look how to improve access to our services and advice in general. Already as part of a consortium of advice providers in Derbyshire we led a bid to the Big Lottery for the development a Countywide access point to our combined

services. We are pleased to say the Advice Derbyshire’s telephone advice line will be coming on stream later this year and it will provide some access outside normal advice agency opening hours. We also intend during the next twelve months to talk to local people about our services and try to find out how we can improve given the resources we have to work with.

Responding to need

Introducing our new Gateway

system

I

n October of last year the bureau implemented gateway interviews, a national initiative to improve the efficiency of the service.

Every client accessing our service through the main bureau or telephone now has a short gateway interview of around 10 minutes. This enables us to assess the client’s needs and the most appropriate course of action.

We can now deal with basic enquiries more efficiently and speed up any internal or external referrals, this means we can offer a more

streamlined service to clients. It also enables us to manage our resources more effectively.

We are also aware that for various reasons people are not able to easily access our services with this mind we have developed alternative provision. We have our own website www.ned-cab.org.uk , our own advice kiosks in various buildings across the districts and we have developed a range of self help materials and when our

Our Services

North East Derbyshire District Council

are our core funder for services in the district. It is thanks to them that we have a dedicated management team and specialists in Welfare Benefits and Debt. Without this we would not be able to offer the range of services we do or have the support required to host the heart of our work, our volunteers. They also fund our main bureau in Clay Cross and in conjunction with Eckington Town Council they also fund an outreach service in Eckington & Renishaw.

Bolsover District Council fund our core work in

Bolsover which consists of our telephone triage centre and in partnership with Derbyshire County PCT 2 part time generalist caseworkers. We are also working with partners to assist in delivering the Bolsover Financial Inclusion Strategy as commissioned by the District Council. Further details of this can be found later in the report.

A major initiative by Derbyshire County PCT

is to place a generalist CAB adviser in the majority of GP practices across the County. Evidence

suggests that timely advice can have a positive effect on someone’s health and prevent future health problems. We have caseworkers working across the 2 districts details of which can be found on the back cover.

The EMMA partnership is the East Midlands

partnership who successfully tendered for funds from the Financial Inclusion Fund (a Government initiative) to provide money advice. We are fortunate to host two specialist caseworkers , one for each of our Districts.

Our Services

We also work with service and ex service

personnel and their families through The Royal

British Legion, Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund and Citizens Advice Benefits and Money Advice Service. We host 2 caseworkers covering the Counties of Derbyshire and

Nottinghamshire. We work in close partnership with the Royal British Legion Field Office in Derby and the majority of our referrals come through their office.

A Derbyshire wide partnership between

Citizens Advice Bureaux and Macmillan is co-ordinated from our Bolsover centre. A service which came about because a major concern for cancer patients and their families/carers was finance. The caseworkers based at the 7 bureau are able to help with timely money and benefit advice.

Working with Derbyshire County Council’s

Children & Younger Adults department we deliver two services for them. One a signposting service where we offer help & guidance regarding the various services available to families with young children, this is led by the local CVS, and an Income Maximisation service for the same client base. This second service is available through most CAB in the County and is led by N E Derbyshire CAB

On behalf of Advice Derbyshire

we led a successful bid to the Big Lottery for the development of a one contact point for people living or working in

Derbyshire to find the help and advice they are looking for. It is anticipated that one telephone point will be available, including some work outside normal opening times, later in 2010.

A CASE STUDY FROM ONE OF OUR GP CASEWORKERS

Brenda, aged 58, was referred to our service via her GP after she mentioned to him that she was stressed following a bailiff visit for a council tax debt. Brenda suffered with anxiety and for the past 10 years she had been in receipt of Income Support and Disability Living Allowance.

CAB identified that in January 2009 Brenda was issued with a council tax bill for £3900.91 for the period March 2004 to January 2009. It appeared that March 2004 was the completion date of a granny annexe that she had paid to be built onto her son’s property for her to live in due to deteriorating health. The annexe had a connecting door to the main house and Brenda used the kitchen and laundry facilities of the main house. However in September 2008 Brenda and her son had an argument and Brenda had alterations carried out to be self contained so that she had no more contact with her son in the main house.

After a suspected tip-off, a council tax valuation officer went to inspect the property and subsequently issued Brenda with the large council tax bill from the date that the annexe was built. Post bailiff involvement Brenda applied for council tax benefit however the council refused to backdate any benefit leaving her with the large debt.

The CAB caseworker was able to get the council to put a hold on bailiff action providing that Brenda paid an affordable £13 per month towards the arrears. The caseworker then wrote to Derby Valuation Office explaining the situation and proposed that they altered the council tax valuation list to include the annexe from the date that Brenda became self contained and also appealed the decision of the Local Authority to not backdate benefit.

2 months later Brenda received an apology letter from the valuation office stating that her property was to be included in the valuation list from September 2008 instead of March 2004. CAB provided medical evidence of Brenda’s deteriorating health and the Local Authority agreed to backdate the council tax from the new date when the property was added to the valuation list and remove the court fee and bailiff charges. This left Brenda in credit for council tax and she was issued a refund.

Debt Written off: £3900.91

The Help we give—some case studies

A CASE STUDY FROM ONE OF OUR RBL CASEWORKERS

A referral was received from Derby field office of The Royal British Legion (TRBL). Dave had contacted the office to ask for help with his housing situation.

He was homeless after being released from a "Dry Out Centre" in Cornwall where he was being treated for alcohol abuse. He has now been clean for over 6 months. Dave was born in Chesterfield. His parents both died when he was around 12 years old. He had been in the care of Social Services/Foster Carers for the most part of his life. He has a 3 year old son with his former partner, but does not get chance to spend much time with him.

He is currently in Bed and Breakfast accommodation. This is provided by

Chesterfield Borough Council. The Council will not re house him however because he has outstanding rent arrears from his previous time in Chesterfield.

Dave really needs to be in private rental accommodation. He has an interview with the council to discuss his options and also has an appointment to view a property but needs help with the bond, some white and brown goods and his benefit and debts sorting out.

He currently receives long term Incapacity Benefit, along with Disability Living Allowance (DLA) Care and Mobility components. Based on his current income he should be receiving some Income Support. We agreed to help him with this. We asked TRBL to consider helping with bond in the short term and maybe other items once we have managed to sort out his priority issues.

Dave has now secured a property. TRBL have helped with bond and one months rent (£920)

They have also helped with vouchers of £450 to help with some items for his new property. They have also supplied a new bed, washing machine, microwave and fridge freezer.

Dave is now also in receipt of his full benefit entitlement and is over £40 a week better off (£488 backdated) and is making payment to clear his previous rent arrears.

Some statistics — our clients

0-16 0% 17-24 9% 25-34 15% 35-49 26% 50-64 28% 65 + 22% Carer - children 3% Carer -elderly/disabled 1% Employed < 30 hrs p/w 10% Employed >= 30 hrs p/w 21% Looking after home -no dependants 0% Other 1% Permanently sick/disabled 14% Retired 25% Self employed 2% Student 1% Unemployed 22% Female 53% Male 47%

Age range of our clients

Gender

Some statistics — our clients

Couple 30% Couple with dependant children 20% Couple with non-dependant children 3% Other adult only

2% Other with dependant children 0% Single person 32% Single person with dependant children 11% Single person with non-dependant children 2% Buying Home (mortgage, etc.) 25% Council/ALMO tenant 23% Homeless (including Bed & Breakfast tenant) 0% Housing Association/RSL tenant 3% Other 1% Own Outright 19% Prison 0% Private Tenant 17% Rent-Free Housing 1% Shared Ownership 0% Social Tenant 2% Staying with relatives/friends 9%

Household Type

Household Tenure

Some statistics — Enquiry Type

The above chart

shows the number and type of enquiries we have dealt in the bureau, by telephone and at outreaches etc. It does not though give the full picture, many access advice through other means and so over the last year

19,323 enquiries were dealt with either face to face or over the telephone 40,803 visits were recorded on our website ( 144,073 pages)

8,079 page hits were recorded on our kiosks

947 enquiries were dealt via our automated phone system (out of hours advice) So one way or another almost 70,000 enquiries came through the bureau systems

As a result of those clients who were seen face to face or dealt with over the telephone we rescheduled

£8,445,942

of debt and helped local people claim an additional

£1,919,620

in benefits and a further

£246,732

in grants and other financial gains.

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000

Working in Partnership

The Derbyshire wide Local Area Agreement (LAA) and local strategies operate around 4 main themes; Children & Younger People, Health & Well Being, Culture & Sustainable Communities.

CAB plays an important part in helping achieve some of the aims outlined in these plans, for example

Children & Younger People

Our work in partnership with Surestart Children’s Centres, Social Care Dept and Derbyshire County Council’s Children and Younger Adults Dept where we provide benefit and money advice, a family liaison service helping families find the most appropriate service for their needs all contribute to the aim of helping achieve economic well being.

Health & Well Being

Our partnership work with Derbyshire PCT through the provision of advice in GP practices is acknowledged as an important factor in helping well being — people on low income suffer with disproportionate health problems brought on through income deprivation and debt. Studies have shown that these problems can be both mental & physical.

Sustainable Communities

We are a founding member of the financial inclusion strategies of N E Derbyshire, Bolsover District & Derbyshire County where in partnership with others we are looking to provide advice & support to help people increase their financial capability, gain access to affordable borrowing (through the development of Credit Unions) and receive appropriate money & benefit advice.

Culture

We support this theme through developing our volunteer base and community

involvement and through our kiosks we are giving access to information, support and learning opportunities to local people.

Our Social Policy Work

E-BEF’s or Electronic Bureau Evidence Forms are the way we highlight social Policy issues to our National Association. Our advisers and caseworkers complete one of these forms when they come across a concern about a piece of policy be it National or Local. With Bureau nationally doing exactly the

same Citizens Advice can spot any recurring issue or issues.

Issues such as these have led Citizens Advice and others to call for a Fair Welfare system, that is just and efficient

E-BEF

for social policy issues from cases · local social policy work · liaison meetings · press work · contact with MPs

Clients husband died on 26/12/2009. She subsequently tried to make a claim for Job Seekers Allowance, staff were less than helpful, asking if client had been actively seeking employment from the 26th December 2009. At the time of the reporting to Job Centre Plus the client was naturally very upset at the recent death of her husband. The attitude of the adviser only caused more distress.

The client has been overpaid Child Tax Credits of over £10,000 for the years 2003 — 2007. The overpayment was due to a wrong assumption by the assessor as to what other benefits were being paid to the client’s husband this is despite the fact that the client noted on her claim forms that she was confused as to which benefits her husband was receiving.

Our Volunteers are the backbone of our service.

These are the people you are most likely to receive help from first when you come into the bureau. These advisers will have undergone the recognised Citizens Advice training scheme backed up within the bureau.

Things have changed a great deal over the last few years and much of our advice work is computerised from the highly respected information system to our case management system. The fact that it is

computerised shouldn’t put people off though because we can offer I.T. training too if required.

Our Trustee Board is also made up of volunteers, these are often people who have particular expertise that they can offer to help oversee

the work of the Bureau. This could be financial, H.R., fundraising, legal, knowledge of local communities, marketing etc..

A typical day in the bureau would start between 9.30am & 9.45am to prepare for the bureau opening at 10am. An

adviser would then begin seeing client’s either using our Gateway assessment (a brief 10 minute interview to assess the clients problem and see if it can be dealt with via some basic information or if an appointment is required) or see someone via our appointment system (i.e. someone who has been assessed as needing more than basic information). Advisers are supported by an Advice Session Supervisor who is on hand whilst advice sessions are in progress. In between interviews advisers write up their case notes on the electronic case management system. There’s always a good supportive atmosphere in the main workroom and someone is usually brewing up tea or coffee. The bureau closes at 2pm and advisers can then finish off their

’writing up’ . Hopefully these hours mean that those with family commitments can offer their time too. For those who don’t fancy the idea of advising we are currently looking for volunteers to help us in other roles such as helping us with our social policy work, fundraising, or people to help others to use our self help systems e.g. giving a few hours at some of the public venues where our kiosks are based to help people access the information they are looking for, again training would be provided.

Financial Inclusion

We have been promoting the idea of a financial inclusion strategy

for our Districts for some time.

Financial Inclusion is about trying to

ensure people don’t suffer due to lack of access to, for example free

debt advice, low cost credit, bank accounts - a more detailed explanation

can be seen in this diagram

We are working with CHART LSP in N E Derbyshire, the District Council & Community and Voluntary Partners in Bolsover and a partnership including Derbyshire County PCT, the credit unions, Housing Associations, Rural Action Derbyshire, Derby Diocese, Derbyshire County Council among others to produce a County Wide strategy and support the development of a County wide credit union service.

Every year we report how busy we have been

, this year is no exception and in fact it has been our busiest year ever. Such a severe recession brings about many more people with money worries, some who believed it could never happen to them. The Government introduced a number of measures to help, particularly in an effort to help people keep their homes. We have also seen a large increase in people wanting to go bankrupt. You will have already seen that last year we dealt with almost eight and a half million pounds worth of debt and assisted people to claim almost two million pounds of benefits. We have also had our Citizens Advice audit scoring 90% for our Quality of Advice putting us within the top 5% in the Country. It should not be forgotten however that CAB deal with many other issues as can be seen in the earlier chart, in fact 25% of those seeking our help present with queries other than debt or benefits.

You will also have read that in accordance with guidance from our National

Organisation we have introduced a Gateway system to assess the type of enquiry being made and the level of input required from our advisers. This should enable us to ensure that those who most need our intervention get it and at the appropriate level. To help with this we have developed a range of self help materials which we use in conjunction with those developed by Citizens Advice.

We are also well aware that we are not meeting the needs of everyone who needs our help. To that end we have over the last couple of years improved telephone access and we have developed our own website which deals with many of the issues we are asked about. We have also developed our own information kiosks which link to a number of useful sites customised to where they are situated. Some are health related others link to sites relative to bringing up a family all though link to our and Citizens Advice websites. All of this though is only possible through the dedication of ALL those who work for N E Derbyshire CAB in whatever capacity and of course our funders who are listed earlier in this report.

WITHOUT THEM NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE. THANK YOU.

Where to find us

Main Bureau - 126 High Street, Clay Cross

Open Mon - Friday 10am - 2pm Eckington Library Outreach Open for drop in enquiries Fri

10am - 2pm

Renishaw Community Centre Outreach

Open for drop in enquiries Tues 10am - 2pm

Via appointment at the following G.P. Surgeries

Ashover Primary Care Centre Thurs pm (alternate weeks)

Barlborough Medical Practice, Weds pm

Blackwell Medical Practice, Worksop Road Fri am(alternate

weeks)

Castle Street Surgery, Bolsover Fri am

Creswell Medical Centre, Welbeck Street Weds am

Dronfield Medical Practice, High Street Weds pm

Friendly Family Surgery, Bolsover Weds pm

Springs Health Centre, Clowne Tues am

Oakhill Medical Practice, Dronfield Tues pm

Gosforth Valley Surgery, Dronfield Tues pm

Grassmoor Surgery Thu pm

Staffa Health, Holmewood Weds pm

Staffa Health, Pilsley Mon pm

The Village Surgery, Pinxton Tues pm

Shires Health Centre, Shirebrook Weds pm

The Village Surgery, S Normanton Thurs pm

(alternate weeks)

Staffa Health, Stonebroom Thurs pm (alternate weeks)

Staffa Health, Tibshelf Weds am St. Lawrence Road Surgery, North

Wingfield, Tues am

Appointments for all these venues should be made via the surgeries.

Killamarsh Clinic (not the surgery) Mon pm

Book appointments on 01246 868843

Please check our website or the surgery notice boards for further

details.

Telephone advice is available on 0844 848 9800 (Calls charged at 5p per minute)

See our website for further details and for basic advice and a range of self help materials www.ned-cab.org.uk