WHAT WE DO

The Bureau provides a wide range of advice and services.

• During 2006/7 we dealt with over 32,300 enquiries, split approximately equally between general enquiries and enquiries to our specialists.
• We recovered at least £430,000 for clients by helping them to claim benefits and allowances to which they were entitled and by many other forms of assistance.

The main categories of general enquiries were as follows (click on category to see details):

Benefits

Welfare benefits accounted for 4,640 enquiries dealt with by volunteer advisors in Faversham, Sheppey and Sittingbourne. This is 28% of all enquiries dealt with by our volunteers. Disability benefits, such as Disability Living Allowance, accounted for most benefit enquiries, closely followed by Income Support.

We identified benefits clients weren’t claiming and helped clients to complete the necessary forms.

We made innumerable phone calls to chase up and sort out missing and delayed payments. We did considerably more of this than usual because of the long delays which have beset benefit processing since the change to centralised processing.

We continued to see a large number of clients experiencing difficulties with Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. These benefits are calculated in a very complex way and the letters sent to clients are opaque to put it mildly. Recently a client received 20 letters in a very short period of time all with differing amounts of Tax Credits for various years

We also provided help with form-filling for clients who are unable to deal with the demanding official forms required in order to apply for welfare benefits. The sensitive help available at the CAB enabled many clients to successfully claim Disability Living Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Attendance Allowance, Industrial Injuries Benefit, and many other benefits. (back to top)

Debt

This was our second largest enquiry area accounting for just over 25% of enquiries dealt with by our volunteer advisors. It was our fastest growing category of advice with 1,600 more enquiries dealt with than last year. Many clients end up getting quite confused about what debts they actually have as debts get sold on to other companies and clients lose track as to what the debt was originally for. We also helped a significant number of clients to get debts worth some £32,000 in total written off. These ranged from debts with Transport for London to a refund of nursing home fees. (back to top)

Employment

In 2006/7 we dealt with almost 2,400 employment enquiries, a 10% increase on last year. The main enquiry areas were pay, terms of employment and dismissal. The CAB provided support to clients by helping to write letters to employers and by explaining what clients’ contractual obligations actually involved.

Two volunteer advisors were able to provide considerable help and support to clients who initiated Employment Tribunal proceedings. Most cases involved redundancy and/or dismissal and required several meetings with the advisor.

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Housing

Housing, particularly issues around actual and threatened homelessness, accounted for 8% or almost 1,260 of all enquiries to volunteer advisors. We worked closely with the Homelessness Prevention Team at Swale Borough Council on a number of cases and together were able to obtain satisfactory outcomes.

An ongoing problem has been the difficulty which many private tenants experience in getting their deposit returned at the end of the tenancy. We hope that the April 2007 legislation providing for mandatory rent deposits and resolution in the event of disputes will solve this long term problem.(back to top)

Legal and Relationship

These two categories of enquiry have been combined because of the overlap between them. There were just over 2,230 enquiries between them, with the main enquiry areas being issues about divorce and separation and legal proceedings e.g. how to pursue a claim for money in the courts.(back to top)

Other Enquiry Areas

There were enquiries that fell under other smaller specific enquiry categories (such as Tax, Immigration and Community Care). This year for the first time over 2% of our clients were from East European countries. Many of their enquiries were very difficult to answer as we had conflicting advice from government agencies. For example, the Home Office twice told us that a Polish client did not have to register under the Workers Registration Scheme while the Department for Work & Pensions was equally insistent that she did have to register!

There were also enquiries regarding health, utilities, education, and community care. Although these enquiries are hard to classify they represent an important aspect of CAB work: i.e. a key to accessing other services and specialist support.(back to top)