Welfare Reform: Lewes District Council is leading the way in helping residents

Lewes District Council has partnered with FutureGov to identify how welfare reform will impact on residents, and what options are available to support people.

The project looks at more radical approaches to help all members of the community, not just those on benefits. It looks beyond what the benefits system provides to the wider resources that are in the community, and how they can be used to help people meet their aspirations. An example is FutureGov’s Casserole project, which brings local communities together around home cooked food, with people who are happy to cook an extra portion of dinner for older neighbours who struggle to cook for themselves.

The council and FutureGov have spoken to many residents and front line staff, as well as partners such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Credit Union, and Eastbourne Borough Council, to really get a picture of how life is on the front line.  I have been delighted to be part of the working group , representing BHT.

We understand that life is hard for many people with added financial pressures. It’s been great to be involved with such inspiring colleagues from Lewes District Council and Future Gov, to lead the way in finding innovative solutions for people to deal with the financial pressures of day to day life.

FutureGov has already secured funding of £50K to develop a secure mobile app with the council to enable people to access low interest loans from Credit Unions, to rival current high interest “pay day lenders”.  The council will work with financially vulnerable people to create the secure app.  It will help reduce fraud and financial exploitation and empower people with limited means to take control of their lives through better borrowing and saving habits.

Over the next six months, the council and FutureGov will work with residents and partners to develop more ideas and work out which schemes will work best in the district.

To find out more about the Lewes project or to get involved please email rachel.allan@lewes.gov.uk or tweet @lewesdc.

Tackling Fuel Poverty in Brighton and Hove

BHT Advice Centre has recently secured funding to deliver advice to promote the reduction of fuel poverty in Brighton and Hove.  Fuel poverty is defined as any household which spends more than 10% of its income on fuel to keep the home in a ‘satisfactory’ condition.  In order to maximise income and reduce outgoings, our adviser, Rachel Butt, will be providing:

- help and advice on energy tariffs (including trust fund applications)

- benefits checks and applications

- low level debt advice and negotiation to reduce outgoings

Who we can help …

The eligibility criteria is quite simple: people will be eligible if they are in fuel-poverty (have problems in paying their energy bills and need our advice and assistance) AND live in Brighton and Hove.

The referral process could not be simpler: either phone Rachel on 01273 234752 or email her rachel.butt@bht.org.uk who will send you a referral form.

When we can help … 

Rachel will do home visits between now and the end of March 2013, with a view to making at least five visits a week.

 

Seeking advice at the earliest possible time can save a huge amount of time, added complications and worry

We can’t pick up the newspapers these days without hearing about the struggle ordinary people have in making ends meet. Inflation is up again, fuel bills are causing huge anxiety, and many households going ow having to cope with the additional cost of Christmas.

Where households are getting into financial difficulties it is important that they get advice at the earliest possible time.

I’ve recently been told that our Eastbourne Advice Centre is seeing an increase in the number of people who are delaying seeking advice until their situation is at a critical point.

My colleague, Sue Hennell,  BHT’s Advice Services Manager  in East Sussex  told me  that it is very common for people to feel unable to face up to the growing difficulties if at all possible.  She said that it is never too late to get advice but that her advice is not to delay if at all possible.  Early advice can save a huge amount of time, added complications and worry.

Sue told me: “In over 80% of housing cases, we either prevent homelessness or achieve other positive outcomes such as sorting out disrepair and helping with finding accommodation.”

Here is an example of a client, John (not his real name) who we have helped. John was a client of our Eastbourne Advice Centre and knows first-hand how important it is to get advice as soon as possible. He said: “I came to the advice centre because I was unemployed and six months behind on my mortgage payments. I had left it and left it and eventually it got so bad that the mortgage company applied to the County Court for a Warrant of Possession.

“I thought that I would lose my home and couldn’t see a way out of it.

“I went to see an adviser at BHT Sussex and they realised I had not been receiving a state pension or pension credits. They were able to adjourn the hearing for 6 weeks and make an application for the state pension and pension credits.

“I received a backdated payment which allowed me to pay off my mortgage arrears and I was then able to pay my mortgage each month with the on-going payments.

“I had spent the last six months worrying about losing my home and wondering what I was going to do. Early advice would have prevented all of this worry and stress. I should have sought advice as soon as the problem started.”

BHT Sussex Eastbourne Advice has recently moved to share an office with Citizens Advice Bureau, Eastbourne. The co-location of the two advice agencies has resulted in a ‘one stop shop’ for advice in Eastbourne.

Click here for contact details of our advice centres in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings.

Will 2013 and the introduction of Universal Credit see an improvement or worsening in arrears, bad debts and evictions?

 

One of the biggest challenges for all providers of rented accommodation, either in the social or private sectors, will be the impact of further welfare reform, in particular the introduction of Universal Credit and payments direct to tenants.  For tenants, there will be an increase in their responsibilities and consequences for not getting it right.

A new YouGov survey published today by Shelter has estimated that 1.4 million Britons are falling behind with the rent or mortgage payments.  The number of people struggling to pay their rent or mortgage each month has increased by 44% over the past year, to 7.8 million people.  The research also reveals that over the past year:

• almost a million people used a payday loan to help pay their rent or mortgage
• 2.8 million people used an unauthorised overdraft to help pay their rent or mortgage, and of those 10% did so every month.

There is a wide political consensus on the need for welfare reform.  Many of the objectives of Universal Credit are laudable, not least the implementation of the system and the ambition that work should always pay.  I have a particular concern: that the implementation on the ground will result in problems for claimants and landlords alike.  There have been warnings that the systems necessary will not be in place nor robust enough.  The pilots on payments to tenants have not been encouraging and there have been worrying increases in arrears.

The government, MP’s and the DWP have had sufficient warnings about the state of readiness.  Reassurances have been given at each turn.  I hope they are right.  However, I know from BHT’s own research, the expectation that claims be made online are a long way from reality in spite of work being done with social housing tenants.  Only a few of us are doing much for tenants in the private rented sector who are particularly vulnerable.

The consequences of significant problems in the implementation of Universal Credit, to claimants and landlords alike, are grim.  Tenants will get into arrears and face eviction. An increase in arrears and bad debts, will see some associations failing.  Housing associations have been reviewing their risk maps, with welfare reform now at the top of their risk registers.  Private landlords will become even more reluctant than they are at present to offer tenancies to claimants.

The Shelter / YouGov survey shows the situation before the impact of welfare reform.  I hope that in a years time the simplified system will see an improvement in arrears and evictions.  Sadly I think the situation will have only worsened.  I sincerely hope to be proved wrong.

The Mayor of Brighton and Hove visits BHT’s Advice Centre

The Mayor of Brighton and Hove, Councillor Bill Randall, today visited BHT’s Advice Centre in Queens Road, Brighton.

The Mayor of Brighton and Hove, Cllr Bill Randall, visits BHT’s Brighton Advice Centre

Cllr Randall met staff who provide housing, welfare benefit, debt and immigration advice and representation.  Last year the Advice Centre worked with 3,912 men and women.

In 2011/12, because of the work of the Advice Centre, homelessness was prevented or accommodation found in 1,531 cases.

After the visit, Bill acknowledged that the Advice Centre makes a huge contribution to meeting many of the City Council’s strategic priorities including the prevention of homelessness and rough sleeping, reducing inequality through helping clients out of poverty, and achieving community cohesion through immigration advice helping families achieve stability and live together.

I a statement, he said: “Most distressing is to hear about the trafficked children brought here for domestic service or prostitution. Some are as young as 13. Often these children are referred to as ‘young people’. In reality they are children and need our protection.”

The Advice Centre prevented homelessness in 70% of cases. This represents a huge financial saving for the local authority but more importantly there are fewer people sleeping on the streets and fewer people in temporary accommodation.

The work of BHT’s Advice Centre: preventing homelessness, reducing inequality, community cohesion

This morning I reviewed the impact made by BHT’s Advice Centre in Brighton. Here are some basic statistics. I would ask you to reflect on the difference we make to the City and the consequences should this service close:

• 35% clients belong to a BME group
• 42% clients have either a disability, addiction or suffers from mental or physical ill health
• 55% of housing clients are in “priority need” and so the possible responsibility of the City Council.

Positive Outcomes (expressed as a percent) of Cases Closed during 2011/12

• Housing Advice 88% (This includes homeless prevention, conditions improved, accommodation found, better able to manage affairs)
• Housing court duty 85% (This includes homelessness prevented through stopping a possession order or execution of bailiff’s warrant)
• Accommodation Advice and Assistance 60% (This includes Homelessness prevention, PRS Accommodation found or sustained. These statistics are based on tracking 317 clients over 12 months).
• Welfare Benefits 95% (This includes clients who received increased or backdated benefit, and who are now better abled to manage their affairs)
• Debt 87% (This includes debts negotiated to an affordable plan, client better able to manage debt, debt reduced/written off etc.)
• Immigration 78% (This includes being granted Leave to Remain, refugee status, citizenship, family reunion etc. and includes 63% of appeals won)

Our legal services directly contributes to City strategies on:

• Prevention of homelessness and rough sleeping by reducing the numbers in temporary accommodation.  In 2011/12 homelessness was prevented or accommodation found in 1,531 of cases above. A 70% homelessness prevention rate.
• Reducing Inequality through helping to lift clients out of poverty (often suffering multiple problems, for example mental health, addictions, offenders, street homelessness, anti-social behaviour, poverty)
• Community cohesion through immigration advice helping families achieve stability and live together

Gamblers in Brighton and Hove lose an average £343.43 a year each

If you needed any convincing that gambling is a mug’s game, figures released by online casino CastleCasino (and reported in the Brighton Argus) showed gamblers in Brighton and Hove lost an average £343.43 a year each, with punters from the City losing £147,500 each year.  Those in Worthing lost an average of £431.97, in total about £77,000 a year with only Middlesbrough (£479.29) and Liverpool (£482.42) faring worse.

That’s the average.  There are people losing much, much more.

When I was young I used to see, on my way back from school on a Friday evening, migrant workers who worked in the docks in Cape Town, being duped by the ‘pea in the bottle top’ scam.  The promise of doubling their meagre wages was too great, and when in a matter of minutes they had lost their entire weekly wage packet, their distressed pleas for a refund were dismissed.

I am still haunted by the pathetic wailing of a middle aged man whose distress was met by laughter and contempt.

I have a mixed emotional reaction to gambling.  On the one hand I can see the adrenalin charged attraction, a quick win, something for nothing. On the other hand, the plight of that labourer, unable to send money home to his family, remains with me, and I feel sick the pit of my stomach.

During this time of austerity, desperate people do desperate things, but gambling is not the answer. Like alcohol and drugs, for many people it is something that goes no further than a recreational activity.  For others, it becomes the problem, destroying relationships, families and lives.

A stark warning about gambling comes from Dr Richard Bowskill of the Priory clinic in Hove, quoted in the Argus: “It’s an average so there will be people who lose more – it is still high compared to annual disposable income. In that group will be people spending much more which can often be a sign of gambling addiction. When I see people they have already got into trouble, sometimes in the tens of thousands of pounds. I have seen patients have to make themselves bankrupt. Some people have lost their homes, and the problem with an addiction is they keep on doing it.”

There is help available, including the support of Gamblers Anonymous Brighton and Hove:

• To help people with gambling problems.
• Meetings every Friday, 8-10pm on the ground floor of The Allen Centre.
• The Allen Centre, 60 Sackville Gardens, Hove, BN3 4GH [map]
• 01273 595961

There has been the tiniest bit of good news about legal aid cuts, but the uncertainty continues

Whenever I have a chance, on radio or television, or in articles in local papers, I refer to The creation of a ‘perfect storm’ that will lead to a massive rise in homelessness next year. Amongst the factors that will have a negative impact in areas such as Brighton & Hove, Eastbourne, Hastings, Worthing and Littlehampton, to mention just a few areas on the coastal south east, are:
Cuts to housing benefit
Reduction in access to advice and representation as a result of cuts to the legal aid budget
Spiralling costs of private sector rents
Greater competition for whatever social housing is available
Displacement from London of homeless people as the streets are ‘cleaned up’ in preparation for the Olympic Games.

This week there has been a little, just a little, bit of good news. It has been announced that the changes in legal aid funding have been put off for six months, from an original implementation date of October 2012 to April 2013. The 10% cut in the value of funding from October 1st 2011 remains, and we continue to feel the impact of that.

At BHT we subsidise our advice services by over £100,000 each year, funding which gets harder and harder to raise.

The downsize of this delay is that uncertainty about the future continues for BHT as an organisation and for our dedicated and highly skilled staff team.

I am frequently asked what the legal aid measures are. This week’s edition of Inside Housing has a very helpful ‘low down’ which I repeat here:

“The government plans to cut the £2.1 billion annual legal aid budget by £350 million annually

“Fees solicitors can claim for legal aid in civil cases were cut by 10% in October
Advice will only be available in cases in which households could be, or have been, made homeless or where serious disrepair is threatening health

“Legal aid for debt advice will only be available when a tenant’s home is at ‘immediate threat’

” Struggling tenants may also be hit by cuts to legal aid and in other cases, such as … appeals against welfare benefit cuts …”

I recently had the privilege of listening to a 61 year old client of our Brighton Advice Centre talk about the misery she had experienced because of the actions of seven different debt collection agencies. Our debt advisor’s knowledge of the law (gained after many years of practice including a period working for a debt collection agency itself!) was able to demonstrate that the original debt of £1,000 – now inflated to over £6,000 because of ‘fees, charges and penalties’ – was not, in fact, owed.

Our client is now able to sleep at night, answer her phone and door, and is beginning to enjoy life again after several years of suffering. How can you put a price on that?

There will be an increase in homelessness, debt and family breakdown as a result of cuts to legal aid

More than a thousand households in Brighton and Hove will lose access for essential housing, welfare benefit and debt advice and representation should a Bill presented to Parliament today (Tuesday) be enacted into law.

The Sentencing and Legal Aid Bill was presented to Parliament by the Justice Secretary, Rt Hon Ken Clarke QC MP.  In a speech to the House of Commons, Mr Clarke said that legal aid “will no longer routinely be available for most private family law cases, clinical negligence, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, some education cases, and welfare benefits.”

With our partners, the Brightonand Hove Citizens Advice Bureau, we risk losing £500,000 per annum if the proposals are implemented. This is funding currently used to support over 3,000 of the city’s most vulnerable residents. Only a fraction of these residents would get help in the future.

My colleague John Holmström, in a press release put out today, said “Advice is effective in preventing homelessness, especially with early help. I am pleased that debt and housing matters where someone’s home is at immediate risk will continue to receive funding.  However, the proposals to limit legal aid to just those in imminent threat of repossession flies in the face of all the evidence showing how early intervention and prevention creates long term savings as well as of equal importance adverting hardship for our local residents.

“InBrighton alone, we are currently funded to take on around 1,400 housing cases. This is expected to drop to less than 300.  We will no longer receive legal aid funding for any welfare benefits or debt work.  The impact on these cuts will be an increase in homelessness, family breakdown, and general hardship.  With the loss of around £1 million funding, our advice services in Brighton, Eastbourne andHastingswill see considerable contraction and, nationwide, there will be a de-skilling of the sector as advisers with many years experience will move elsewhere.”

Along with fellow advice providers, BHT has been campaigning hard to oppose the cuts to legal aid and will continue to do so.  We have been heartened by the responses we have received from the five Members of Parliament for those areas in which we work. The MPs are Simon Kirby (Conservative; Kemp Town), Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion), Mike Weatherley (Hove), Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) and Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye).

MP’s will feel the affect of the proposed reduction in cases funded through legal aid.  I hope that they will continue to oppose these cuts to legal aid.  Should the cuts go ahead, Members of Parliament will see a huge increase in constituents turning to them for help in dealing with complex and involved housing, welfare benefit and debt cases.  I hope they and their staff will have the time and expertise to respond in the same way that our experienced and specialist staff currently do.

The hopes and fears for the Comprehensive Spending Review

This week sees the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review, and I must admit that I await the detail with some trepidation.  BHT has long been aware that we, as a country, would be facing difficult times.  Indeed, at BHT we began preparing for this moment two years ago.  We examined our cost base, and made some very painful decisions regarding the salaries we pay.  We have made strenuous efforts to increase our income, and have made some bold steps in the direction of creating profitable social enterprises.

During this time, and in the months and years ahead, it is the ongoing support we receive from individuals, church and community groups that make the difference for many of our services.  As a result of your generosity and support, we are possibly better placed than many other charities to cope with even quite dramatic cuts.  We are determined to do what we can to safeguard the services we provide to vulnerable men and women. 

I take comfort from the pledge made by the Prime Minister in Downing Street shortly after the Coalition Government was formed.  David Cameron said: “I want to make sure that my government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country. We must take everyone through with us on some of the difficult decisions we have ahead.  Above all it will be a government that is built on some clear values. Values of freedom, values of fairness, and values of responsibility.”

BHT doesn’t provide any specific services to the elderly, but we do a lot with and for the frail and the poorest.  And the values of fairness and of responsibility run through our veins.

So, what do I hope and fear about Wednesday’s announcements?  I have three key issues I will be listening out for.

The first is housing benefit.  The changes in entitlement to housing benefit already announced remains a major cause for concern, but I hope that high rent areas like Brighton and Hove will receive some extra support to prevent the otherwise inevitable rise in homelessness.

Secondly, I hope that the value of fairness will ensure legal aid will still be there to prevent homelessness, tackle debt, and sort out welfare benefit problems.  This is specialist work and the social return on investment is enormous.  If these specialist services provided by the CAB, BHT and others are cut, we will see the consequences for many years to come.

Finally, I hope to see that the elderly, the frail and the poorest in our country will still be able to receive support through the very excellent services funded through the Supporting People programme.  This budget has already been significantly reduced in recent years.  There is little, if any more, to give.  I feel so strongly that the most vulnerable men and women in our society must continue to be supported to remain in their homes, to move to greater independence, and are supported into training, education and employment.

By Wednesday evening we will no longer have to speculate.