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In addition to the normal run of enquiries, the Bureau provides a number of additional services for clients:
The Legal Services Commission and Swale Borough Council traditionally fund our debt caseworkers. However, this year we also received funding from the DTI under the Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF) for a debt caseworker. The debt caseworkers are able to arrange affordable repayment schedules and complete bankruptcy petitions. A major part of their work is to ensure that clients keep their home. During the last year they took on 324 new clients. The clients had a total indebtedness of over £6.4 million. Of this some £2.3m was owed on credit cards, another £1.4m in bank loans and overdrafts, £86,000 in Council Tax and £85,000 in rent arrears. Many of the most serious priority debts seem to arise when clients are in and out of work and therefore, on and off benefits or when
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.
A volunteer debt advisor has visited the Freedom Centre in Sheerness most months. She provided money advice and benefits advice to the users of the Centre.(back to top) Towards the end of last year we were successful in obtaining a contract from the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to provide housing advice at the LSC’s Specialist Quality Mark Level. Of the 18 housing repossession cases taken to court this year, the Housing Caseworker has ensured that 14 of the clients have been able to remain in their homes and another was able to sell their property and pay off their mortgage rather than being repossessed.
The Legal Services Commission funds a Welfare Benefits Caseworker to represent clients claiming disability benefits and appealing welfare benefit decisions. The Caseworker had a very successful year. In total he increased clients’ incomes by just over £186,000. Of this, £88,000 was for clients living on Sheppey, £67,000 was for clients in the Sittingbourne area and £31,000 for clients in the Faversham area. 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.
In March 2005, we were awarded two years’ funding from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to increase the take-up of benefits among people over the age of 60. The Project Worker has been very successful in publicising the benefits older people may be entitled to. She has provided direct, personal assistance in completing 121 benefit applications resulting in £117,000 additional benefits paid to clients this year. The outreach sessions she has run at a number of locations around the borough e.g. libraries and sheltered accommodation have been particularly popular. She has also provided assistance by undertaking 127 home visits to clients who are unable to visit her.(back to top) 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 campaign for change. We completed 298 social policy evidence forms, which is above the average for a CAB. By far the largest category of evidence concerned problems with benefits. A major problem was the difficulty of contacting the Canterbury Benefit Processing Office by phone. This was a persistent problem for both clients and CAB staff and meant it was frequently impossible to discover whether a claim was being dealt with and when the claimant was likely to be paid. (back to top) |
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