Citizens Advice Mendip Annual Report 2018-19

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

Somerset Telephone Adviceline 03 444 88 96 23 Monday – Friday 9:00am – 5:00pm Email access via www.citizensadvicemendip.org.uk follow the link at the top of each page

Web www.citizensadvicemendip.org.uk Self Help Advice www.citizensadvice.org.uk

We have adopted the recommended Citizens Advice Information Assurance (IA) policy. We collect data and manage IA risks in accordance with this.

FROME WELLS

5 King Street, Frome, BA11 1BH The Town Hall, Market Place, Wells, BA5 2RB

SHEPTON MALLET STREET

Highfield House, Cannards Grave Road, The Crispin Community Centre, Leigh Road, Shepton Mallet, BA4 5BT Street, BA16 0EZ

Please see our website for up to date opening times

www.citizensadvicemendip.org.uk/ Contact.html

2 Chairman's Report 2018-2019 Well, what a difference one year can make. CA Mendip, like all Charities, never for one minute forgets its vulnerable funding base, but the unanticipated loss of nearly 40% of our core funding from an under pressure Somerset County Council was the shock news of 2018. That single occurrence took its toll. This annual report charts how we have bounced back to maintain a caring and professional service to our clients. We also home in on how we keep apace of constant change with a glimpse of our commitment to training.

Some in authority might think that austerity is over, but there is no sign of that at our end, looking at the numbers through our doors and the circa 24,000 inter related issues they present. It would be good to report our work was nearly done, but judging by the continuing trauma caused by indebtedness, benefits, tax credit, and housing related problems, we will be around for a while yet. Shockingly, Universal Credit remains right up there, years after it was introduced, allegedly to make life easier. Clients with health related issues sadly still strongly make up our numbers.

So, how has CA Mendip responded to its funding challenges? Services like GP Outreach had to go. Our biggest outlay remains staffing, and we had to say goodbye to four experienced and valued staff members. On a more positive note, we have a new, internally recruited team of Advice Session Supervisors, led by Faith Guest, and two senior staff, Rhod and Gill have come back as volunteers. Our incredibly loyal and committed volunteer base remains at a steady 60, despite all the upheaval,.

CA Mendip is fortunate its other funding has held up, and we remain particularly grateful to our principal partner, Mendip District Council for its unflagging support. We also pay homage to support from our towns and Parishes, and in particular Wells and Street where increased funding has helped us improve delivery in their domains.

On behalf of the Board and everybody they have helped in 2018-19, it is my pleasure to thank the incredible team at CA Mendip. Well done.

3 Malcolm Williams Chair of Trustees Clients and Problems The number of clients this year 1457 has once again risen, by nearly Shepton 8429 5% to 4,298; however, the 1099 number of issues we have dealt with has risen by over Frome 6804 10% to over 23,500. Which 660 Clients equates to approximately five Wells 4139 and a half issues per client. 494 Problems Frome and Shepton have the Street 1466 two main offices so it isn’t 588 surprising that wards within

Glastonbury 2717 these two towns are represented in the top five. 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 With increasing use of Somerset Adviceline telephone service (see p10), email and other digital media we hope to improve access to good, relevant advice to not only the towns but also the outlying rural areas. Problems by Category

Debt and benefits make up over half our workload. With the introduction of Universal Credit in Somerset as a pilot project two years ago we found that clients needed our help not only with the intricacies of the benefit rules and regulations itself but also with those issues relating to making a claim online, budgeting and reporting changes of 4 circumstances. Where our Clients Came from

5 What we have achieved this year

Clients and Housing

2 in 3 people 2 in 5 1 in 10 debts who sought help households had related to rent rent their home a monthly or mortgage income below arrears £600

Clients and Debt Value of debts written off £1,941,560

We saw 786 We dealt with 1 in 5 debt clients with 5029 debt issues related to distinct debt issues face to Council Tax problems face

Financial 1287 young people 94% would capability received face to face recommend this for money young product to a management people friend sessions

6 Clients and "The panel were shocked at the poor Long Term quality of the ATOS Health issues assessment and could not understand how "The panel were the DWP and the HCP appalled at the DWP (health care decision and the ATOS professional) could assessment. This have awarded no person is severely 1 in 2 people 1 in 3 of our points. The appellant disabled with identified as clients with a has serious, long- an horrendous standing mental health condition that she and either sick or Disability/LTHC issues and has a fully her family battle permanently had mental supportive GP." bravely. This is not a condition that will disabled health issues Judge Suffield- improve so she falls Thompson, from cases into the category of we helped take to people who should not tribunal be re assessed."

Clients and 38% of all issues 1 in 3 benefit Benefits seen were issues was Value of benefit related Universal Credit benefit advice £6,382,004

Work 1 in 4 1 in 3 employment employment issues related to issues related to pay and T&Cs of dismissal employment

Equality 59% of our 10% of our and clients were clients were Diversity women and from a BME 41% were men community

7 Investing in Quality Citizens Advice is known for its professionalism and high quality of advice. Often it is not realised what happens behind the scenes with volunteers to enable them to do this. Therefore below is a brief summary of not only what a volunteer goes through before they are allowed to see clients but also what is expected of them on an ongoing basis.

Training is a fundamental part of volunteering in CA Mendip so that we can ensure we meet the needs of our clients. When people come to volunteer with us often they do not realise the commitment we ask of them to become generalist advisers.

The volunteer adviser programme consists of 12 weekly group sessions, self-study and e- learning around eight core subjects. These are benefits, debt, employment, housing, consumer, discrimination, family, and immigration. A prospective volunteer adviser will spend 60 hours learning the basic outline of what we do through these core topics.

It is not enough for a Citizens Advice adviser to just have knowledge of the issues; they also have to understand the aims and principles of Citizens Advice and have the skills to deliver them in an appropriate manner that meets the needs of the client.

Integrated within the core subject areas is training in the skills and techniques needed to deliver some complex information, and often we have to give difficult advice.

Once the initial training is completed we assess each volunteer to ensure they have the basic understanding of issues and are able to interact with our clients in a non-judgemental and impartial manner.

Training does not stop at this point. The volunteers then spend between six and 12 months honing their skills and broadening their knowledge base with more in-depth and specialist training.

After this is completed each volunteer undertakes a final assessment in which they are observed and their case records reviewed. Only then will they receive their certificate of generalist advice and become a General Adviser.

Our volunteers are the life blood of the organisation who stand on a solid base of training and support. Without this commitment we could not hope to deliver a service to meet the needs of our clients over the whole of the 8 Mendip District at five offices. Somerset Adviceline Telephone Service Citizens Advice Mendip has over the last three years worked and come together with our colleagues in Sedgemoor, South Somerset and Taunton Deane to create the Somerset Adviceline direct telephone advice service which ensures access to advice throughout the week by telephone.

It also enables those who have difficulty in accessing our services because of disability or caring responsibilities or because, living in a rural area, there is a financial penalty to getting to one of our offices or there is limited transport from the villages.

Offering this service has required us to train our advisers to do telephone advice. The interaction between client and advisor is different and new skills are needed. We developed a training programme for the volunteers to undertake to ensure that the organisation can be confident that volunteers meet the standard of advice required by our service. Channel Access ... This was quite a culture change for both, the organisation as well as Last year we stated that we would be developing volunteers. Some of our volunteers told our service to provide greater access through us that they did not want to become different channels. part of a call centre and lose face to face advice. We knew much of the We continue to see an increase in the number of advice we give cannot be done over the those who contact us through the Somerset telephone either because of the Adviceline; this year over 600 people used this complexity of the issue or the need to service, which amounted to 15% of our contacts. see complementary documents, or Email is also becoming increasingly popular, because many of our clients have with over 350 people contacting us, or 7% of health issues which means using the clients. telephone is not always the most appropriate option for advice. We see this as an increasingly important part of our work, as it means that we can both meet the We therefore decided to use a three- needs of the people of Mendip where transport way training approach of running a is an issue in terms of access to financial and training session for all at our worker/ service provision, and also manage the service’s volunteer meetings, some self-study footfall into the offices where clients need to be provided by Citizens Advice nationally, seen further for more detailed advice. and then hands-on, one to one training taking calls. It also provides access for those people who cannot access the drop in service because they We did this because an essential part of are in work or have caring responsibilities. the interaction using the telephone is to identify not only what advice need With more people being in work but also the client has but also whether that is receiving benefits, managing their advice needs best satisfied by telephone advice, or around their other duties is more easily whether they need an appointment achieved through this type of access. Webchat with us, or whether there is a more begins next year (2019-20) appropriate organisation we can sign- post to. 9 We are more than just a leaflet ... Citizens Advice Mendip is much more than just somewhere you go to pick up a leaflet for information, so we thought we would take this opportunity to highlight the many different things we do and how we engage with the wider community.

Multi-channel Access to Advice Face to face – we have 33 hours of drop in full advice sessions service at Frome (9 hours), Shepton Mallet (9), Wells (9) and Street (6). We also have many more hours of pre-booked appointment time. Telephone – as part of the Somerset group of Citizens Advice we provide a telephone service five days a week from 9am – 5pm on 03 444 889 623. Digital – we offer email access for help and advice from our website on-line. This provides 24/7 access to our comprehensive information and interactive Adviceguide service which is updated daily to ensure accuracy; it also has a broad range of self-help tools and template letters available.

Emergency Help in Crisis In concert with the other Citizens Advice services in Somerset we have been the front door for people to access the County Council’s Local Assistance Scheme (LAS), a vital scheme designed to help people in acute need of either food, fuel or essential household goods. The service is located in Citizens Advice because, when people come to us for emergency help, we are better placed than most to begin dealing with the underlying issue that has tipped the person into crisis. The LAS has been subject to funding reductions by SCC for 2019-20. We would urge anyone who has used the LAS, either as a beneficiary or a professional referring their clients to us for crisis help, to express their support for the Scheme to their local County Councillor.

Helping Develop Money Skills in Adults To help clients avoid getting into the same problem over and over again, we provided Personal Budgeting Support (PBS) to improve their skills and ability to manage their financial affairs. We also provided PBS to people who had been enrolled on the new Universal Credit system. We do this with Mendip District Council’s Housing Options Team to help clients avoid the precursor conditions to eviction as part of the Council’s Homelessness Prevention duties.

Preventing Homelessness We provide Mendip District Council Housing Options team with a fast-track advice service for people facing eviction. MDC Housing Options clients are sent over to us with eviction notices about to be executed within the next few days, sometimes even the next few hours. Our teams are able to quickly help them complete the relevant court forms, assemble a financial statement, and occasionally even put the client in a taxi to get them to the County Court on time to get the warrant suspended, giving time to sort out the problems that the client is facing. This not only keeps people and families in their homes but also saves the local authority (and therefore local council tax payers) many £000s in emergency accommodation and re-housing costs.

10 Specialist Debt Advice Service

Debt makes up a significant element of the demand for help from Citizens Advice Mendip. The amount of new debt caseload coming through our doors regularly reaches the millions of pounds a year. Our small team of Debt Advisers are able to offer a full debt management service to help people begin the process of getting their finances (and often their lives) back in order. Citizens Advice Mendip is properly authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide debt advice services, and anyone seeking help with their debts, or other partners referring their clients for debt advice, should exercise great caution: check for FCA authorisation wherever they go so they can be sure they are fully protected from poor or uninsured debt advisers. We are also fully accredited by the Insolvency Service for our debt team to act as intermediaries for Debt Relief Orders for eligible clients.

Helping Develop Money Skills in Young People We continue to work with an expanding number of local schools by taking financial awareness and capability programmes into the education arena. We see this as vital to get young people thinking about smarter ways to manage their money before they are faced with hard choices away from their family support. These have been very well received by teachers and pupils alike, so much so that we have been supported by local funders once more to deliver in more schools, and not just in Mendip — further afield in Somerset too.

Linking with Partner Schemes to Help People Looking to use the wide recognition of the Citizens Advice brand for independence and good practice, many other organisations also turn to us to help deliver their bespoke support programmes. Somerset Community Foundation, for example, uses us to deliver their Surviving Winter grants to older Mendip residents who are in need of support. We are able to promote similarly helpful schemes such as Wessex Water’s Assist and Restart programmes, which can certainly help people manage their water bills better. We have linked in with the Big Energy Saving Network (BESN) to help people make smarter energy usage and explore options such as switching suppliers.

Help To Claim A new service we are developing with the DWP is helping to claim Universal Credit. Clients can contact us either directly face to face, or via the Somerset Adviceline or by Email; we also take referral's from the Job 11 Centre. Investment Return in Citizens Advice Money In

Money Out 300000

250000

200000

150000

100000

50000 0 Salaries Office Premises Staff and Other, inc. Volunteer Governance

Social Value Return Estimated volunteer hours given: 31,200 per year Estimated economic value: £405,600

For every £1 CA Mendip receives in funding it saves £3.09 in national and local government spending (fiscal benefit). There is a £17.27 return in public value. There is a £19.21 return for clients we help with benefits claims, debts written off or consumer issues.

12 April 2018 - March 2019 Volunteers Adele Kutscher Eduard Tabacaru Martin Long Alex Malcolm Frances Butt Philip Mike Parkinson Alison Cholomondely Geoff Clare Millie Jenkins Alistair Pearce Gerry Lea Monica Mundy Anne Sear Gill Stobart Nigel Milnes Anthony Tibbs Hazel Reakes Richard Brook Carol Oxborough Helen Dance Roz Miller Caroline Easterfield Hilary Bowman Richard Brook Caroline Fulton Jane Moseley Sandi Gryce Carolyn Davidson Jenny Abraham Sarah Vickery Carrie Rolls Jo Greenslade Sheila Courtney Catherine Beringer-Bailey John Chettoe Simon Smith Christine Abrahams Judy Graham Sophie Campbell Claire Stott Kathryn Lewitt Stephen Judge Danielle Eastwood Laura Sorensen Sue Hanney David Gibbon Lesley Hoad Sue McNamee David Reeves Lewis Allen Terrence Bird David Sanderson Louise Deplae Tricia Golinski David Stevens Lynette Pedersen Viv Walker Dawn Cunningham Margaret MacDonald Deborah Baillie Mark Dorrington Doungta Ali Lahrimart Martin Brown Trustees Carole Hounsell Jenny Bradfield Chris Hare Kate Smedley Gus Halfhide Malcolm Williams Janet Saxon Richard Chant Staff Ian Byworth Loraine Suddes Claire Green Lucy Aked Faith Guest Maggi Kingham Gill Stobart Rhod Salter Iona Fitzgerald Samantha Hook Jo Sowerby Samantha Saye

Karen Grant Suzy Fellows 13 Laura Miller CEO’s Closing Remarks

We ended 2017-18 somewhat bruised by the County’s funding cut which overshadowed much of our work and achievements during the year. It prompted some difficult decisions; most notably, the closure of our long-standing GP outreach service and the regrettable loss of four valued members of the paid staff team. Despite these difficult circumstances, the focus of the teams (volunteers, paid staff and trustees) was always to ensure that we continue to deliver the high quality advice services that our clients need and deserve.

So, we stood back and undertook a fundamental review of our services; this has shaped our plans for the coming year and beyond. The review heralded improvements to our service, such as the standardising of working practices and our offer to clients whichever office they contact. We are also making greater use of, and investing in, new technology to improve the ways that we work and communicate as a dispersed team.

With the support of funders (most notably Mendip, Street and Wells Councils) we have been able to retain and enhance our services in Wells and Street. In addition to which, recognising the importance of providing clients with a welcoming environment and that staff/volunteers deserve a safe and healthy working space, we have now scheduled long-overdue refurbishments of the Frome and Wells offices.

Of course, at the top of any CEO priority list you’ll always find the word ‘funding’ and no more so than at the present time in CA Mendip’s history. Despite a £98K reduction in our income, for the year ahead we have been able to plan investment in our services, our infrastructure and our teams to make CA Mendip a more effective and stronger organisation for the future. In tandem with this, we will be seeking out new funding opportunities and ways to deliver our services more efficiently – in so doing, we are working closely with our partners and the other three Citizens Advice services in Somerset.

Rather than dwell on the funding cut and end the year on a gloomy note, we have instead chosen to make our focus the new year ahead, with a positive outlook. In many ways we have been reinvigorated. Much of this is down to the strength of the CA Mendip team and the support of our funders who share our key aims and principles. I’d like, thus, to recognise the input of our volunteers, paid staff, trustees and funding partners, whose hard work and invaluable support are what make CA Mendip a success.

So thank you one and all!

Ian Byworth CEO

14 Volunteering If you have any spare time on your hands and want to help members of your community, then why not become a Volunteer at the Citizens Advice Mendip?

If you are … Willing to learn new skills Keen to make a real difference to people’s lives Able to make a regular commitment of your time Competent in basic computer skills (some training will be given)

Then we would be interested in hearing from you. “It is good to www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/support-us/volunteering give something back to my

local Tel: 01749 345394 community” Email: [email protected]

Now more than ever we need help following the recent cuts by Donating Somerset County Council. Our charity is only able to operate due to the generous contributions that are given to us via donations. Without these, we would no longer be able to run FREE advice sessions.

Shape Mendip Lottery www.shapemendiplottery.co.uk/support/citizens-advice-mendip Shape Mendip Lottery is a weekly online lottery created to support local causes in Mendip. Tickets are from only £1 per week, with 60% going to local good causes, and with prizes up to £25,000!

JustGiving Sign up to justgiving.com and search for Citizens Advice Mendip. You can donate from as little as £2, or set up a monthly payment plan. JustGiving charge no fee so we receive every penny you donate.

15 Somerset Telephone Adviceline 03 444 88 96 23 Monday – Friday 9:00am – 5:00pm

Email www.citizensadvicemendip.org.uk follow the link, top right corner of every page

Web www.citizensadvicemendip.org.uk Self Help Advice www.citizensadvice.org.uk

16