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ADVICE FOR LIVING

In addition to the normal run of enquiries, the Bureau provides a number of Specialist Advice Services for clients:

Debt

A major part of debt work is to ensure clients budget effectively, to maintain payments to their priority creditors to avoid eviction, bailiff action and disconnection from energy suppliers and to make regular, affordable payments to secondary creditors.

We also help clients with bankruptcy petitions and the new Debt Relief Orders (DROs) for clients who qualify for this form of debt relief against the specific criteria which have been established. Two of our debt advisors have qualified as intermediaries and are able to assist clients with DROs as a result.

Government initiatives to help homeowners retain their homes appear to be having very limited effect because of the strict criteria involved. Only the reduction in waiting times for clients claiming interest payments as part of Jobseekers Allowance and Income Support claims appears to be helping clients to any significant extent.

During the year we provided debt advice to 635 clients with a total indebtedness in excess of £9.3 million. Of this £185,000 was Council Tax arrears and £112,000 was rent arrears.

The Legal Services Commission fund two part-time Debt Caseworkers who handled 174 new cases during the year. This contract has recently been extended until 30.9.2010 and offers debt casework to clients who qualify for legal help.

The Financial Inclusion Fund (now part of BIS) in partnership with Citizens Advice funds two full time debt caseworkers. One of these caseworkers works half-time for other Bureaux in East Kent. These caseworkers opened 331 new cases in the financial year. This contract has now been extended until 2011, and mainly provides advice to housing association tenants and to financially excluded clients.

DEREK'S DILEMMA

The Problem
The client was referred for debt advice with rent arrears of £1,770. The Housing Association had arranged a court hearing for repossession but had agreed to adjourn it while we helped the client with his debt problems. The client also had council tax arrears, water arrears, deductions from earnings and other benefit overpayments. Client suffered from long term depression and was off work sick when we saw him.

What the CAB did

  • We were able to arrange repayments of council tax, which avoided the debt being passed to the bailiff.
  • We also worked with his support worker to enable him to make an application to the Southern Water Trust for his water rate arrears to be renegotiated and to ensure he was receiving all the benefits to which he was entitled.
  • We also successfully negotiated repayments of arrears with his Housing Association and negotiated lower weekly payments towards his other benefit overpayments.

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Faversham Caseworker

Faversham Town Council contributes significantly to the funding of a Caseworker at Faversham CAB. The Caseworker supports clients dealing with multiple or complex benefits, housing and debt issues. Many of these cases can take a very long time to resolve as the case below shows.

Mrs SMITH'S LOST APPLICATIONS

The Problem
Mrs Smith was nearing retirement age. She had not worked for two years due to mental illness. She failed a medical examination and her benefits stopped.

She signed on for Jobseeker’s Allowance but became increasingly stressed by her inability to find suitable work and the pressure of Jobcentreplus to attend inappropriate courses. As she felt unable to work she sought advice from Jobcentreplus and claimed Income Support/ Incapacity Benefit. She received no money for over two months and despite trying to find out what was happening both the client and CAB advisors were unable to get a clear explanation from DWP.

What the CAB did
The caseworker was able to identify what had gone wrong with the claiming process and made three separate appeals regarding Income Support and Incapacity Benefit. She pursued a complaint with the DWP following further problems with payment and delays in dealing with the appeals.

The DWP started to pay the benefit due to the client and once all the appeals had been resolved, all arrears due to the client were paid.

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Freedom Centre

A volunteer debt advisor has visited the Freedom Centre in Sheerness most months. She provided general advice, money advice and benefits advice to the users of the Centre.

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Housing Caseworker

We have a contract with the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to provide housing advice at the LSC’s Specialist Quality Mark Level. Our part-time caseworker helped 82 new clients in the year. A majority of these clients were at risk of losing their homes because of rent or mortgage arrears.

Housing Advice Work

Our Housing Advisor saw 382 new clients in the year and offered advice or referral across a range of matters via telephone advice, inter-Bureau referrals and drop-in clinics. The two major enquiry areas were access and provision of accommodation and threatened homelessness. She also signposted a further 253 clients internally or to third parties for specialist help.

We are pleased that a combination of the LSC Caseworker post and our Housing Advisor, working closely with the local authority and Swale Housing Association, enables us to offer a substantial, independent and impartial housing advice service to the local community.

EVICTION AVOIDED

The Problem
Steve and Gill had over £4,000 of rent arrears and a suspended possession order (SPO) against them. They breached the SPO and the Housing Association wanted to evict them.

What the CAB did
CAB arranged for the client to see one of our debt caseworkers, to have a floating support worker to help them manage their affairs and approached an ex servicemen’s charity for help with the arrears.

The Result
The charity paid off much of the rent arrears, the floating support worker and the debt caseworker ensured the clients can manage on their income. CAB then arranged a case conference with the Housing Association. The Association agreed to let Steve and Gill remain in their home.

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Solicitor

A legal rota staffed by local solicitors, Tassells, is run every other Thursday evening at Faversham CAB. This is a very valuable service for clients as they get 30 minutes of a solicitor’s time for free. We would like to record our thanks to Tassells for continuing to provide this service.

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Welfare Benefits

The Legal Services Commission funds a full-time Welfare Benefits Caseworker post to help clients who qualify for legal help and who wish to appeal against welfare benefit decisions by the DWP or Local Authority. Two Caseworkers shared this post in 2008/9. They opened cases for 187 new clients and obtained backdated and increased first year benefit awards for clients that exceeded £200,000.

These clients are on very low incomes and frequently have to cope with debilitating and life changing illnesses. The caseworker’s support and success on their behalf makes a real difference to their lives.

PAT'S APPEAL

The Problem
Pat had applied for Disability Living Allowance and received only the lower rate care component. Pat said that he had problems walking and looking after himself because of shortness of breath and pains in his lower back and legs. The DWP had asked his GP about the effects of his condition on his daily life. The GP had only provided a report about Pat’s medical condition.

What the CAB did
We helped Pat prepare an appeal and prepared a report for his Tribunal hearing. We told Pat that he must attend with his wife for both of them to give personal evidence about his daily life.

The Tribunal adjourned the hearing to obtain an independent doctor’s report and upon receipt of this report awarded Pat the middle rate care and higher rate mobility components. As a result his wife additionally qualified for Carer's Allowance.

Pat’s income increased by nearly £95 per week as a result of the increased award.

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Social Policy

CABx are very well placed to see how policies are affecting ordinary people. This information is fed back to our national organisation. Evidence from all CABx is collated and used to produce Evidence Reports and to campaign for change.

The Bureau continues to produce a high quality of social policy evidence and also participates actively in a Kent-wide forum that identifies local issues and coordinates campaigns.

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