Wakefield District
ANNUAL REPORT 2018-2019
The service aims:
To provide the advice people need for the problems they face To improve the policies and practices that affect people’s lives
The Citizens Advice service provides free, independent, confidential and impartial advice to everyone on their rights and responsibilities. It values diversity, promotes equality and challenges discrimination.
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Citizens Advice Wakefield District trustee board oversee the information security of all personal information of our clients, staff, funders and strategic partners that is processed. Citizens Advice Wakefield District hold joint responsibility for client data that is held in our case management system with the national Citizens Advice Service. An information assurance management team exists to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all personal and sensitive data is maintained to a level which is compliant with the requirements the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018.
Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority FRN: 617779
Citizens Advice Wakefield District is the operating name of Wakefield District Citizens Advice Bureaux – Registered Office: 1st Floor, 27 King Street, Wakefield, WF1 2SR
Registered Charity No: 1058086 – Registered in England and Wales as a Company
Limited by guarantee number: 3229045
Website: www.wakefielddistrictcab.co.uk
Email: [email protected]
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
BOARD OF TRUSTEES:
CHAIR:
Sandra Cheseldine
VICE CHAIR:
Claire Maguire
COMPANY SECRETARY/CHIEF EXECUTIVE:
Liz Halliday* Simon Topham
TRUSTEES:
Barry Blakemore Jane Dixon David Francis MBE Cllr Samantha Harvey Cllr Olivia Rowley Rob Smitten Hilary Warriner
* Denotes left during year or since the year end
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Chair’s Report
Welcome to the Annual Report of Wakefield District Citizens Advice for 2018-2019.
It has been another exciting year with demand for our services remaining high. Debt and benefit queries continue to be the issues we are most frequently asked about. Many clients seek advice face to face but increasingly we are helping clients through telephone advice, email and webchat. The number of clients we help each year continues to rise with over 9,000 helped in the last year. We are a volunteer led service with a core of highly experienced staff who support not just our general advice service but provide specialist advice on debt and benefits.
The last year has seen the launch of our Help to Claim service which provides support to people who are seeking to claim Universal Credit for the first time. This is a major expansion of our service and we are now delivering the help to Claim service from the four Job Centres in Wakefield District. We are always looking for ways to expand our services further and this will be a focus in the coming year.
We could not deliver a service without the support of our funders:-
Wakefield District Metropolitan Council Citizens Advice MAS DAP Fund Featherstone Town Council Normanton Town Council South Elmsall Town Council South Kirby & Moorthorpe Town Council Upton & North Elmsall Parish Council Healthwatch NOVA Live Well Programme DWP – Help to Claim
Many thanks to you all for your support.
Volunteers and staff are vital. We have a dedicated team at Wakefield which enables us to offer a service from 9am to 5pm five days a week plus a late night on a Tuesday and one Saturday morning a month from our office in King Street. Additionally, we have various outreach locations across the district from which we provide a service each week. It is the enthusiasm and commitment of our volunteers and staff which makes this happen. Thank you.
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Liz Halliday, our Chief Officer, retired in July 2019 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her invaluable contribution to the development of Citizens Advice Wakefield District and welcome Simon Topham, our new Chief Officer, who joined us in August 2019.
Please read on to find out more about our achievements in the last year.
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Chief Executive’s Report
Funding & Advice
Wakefield Metropolitan District Council (WMDC) and the Money Advice Service (MAS) continued to be our largest funders in the year 18/19 (in April 2019 the new Help to Claim funding became the single largest source) and benefits and debt continue to be our major enquiry areas by far.
WMDC fund us to deliver the generalist service in Wakefield. In 2018/19 we helped 9,909 clients in total with 22,765 issues across the service. The Money Advice Service (now the Money and Pensions Service) funds us to deliver debt advice. Under this project 2,445 clients received debt advice in 2018/19; a 19% increase on the previous year.
Key statistics for the year are attached. It is worth noting that 38% of clients had a disability or long term health problem and that income gains for clients throughout the year across the service totalled £692,039.
The Council agreed three-year funding in 2018 maintaining funding over the next three years for the Generalist Advice Service of £282,150 per annum, the same level as the 2017/18 agreement.
31 March 2018 saw the end of our 3-year contract with the Money Advice Service to deliver debt advice. A new rolling 12-month contract was issued from 1st April 2018 to continue the service (now under the Money and Pensions Service, MaPS) until the tendering process for new contracts has been completed. We believe that MaPS aim to have new contracts with providers in place by the end of the financial year 2020/21
Normanton, Featherstone, South Elmsall, South Kirby & Moorthorpe Town Councils and Upton & North Elmsall Parish Council continue to make a financial contribution to outreaches based at their premises and are subsidised from our reserves. Havercroft & Ryhill CLP and Hemsworth Town Council outreaches will commence in 2019, also subsidised by our reserves. We also deliver an outreach at St Giles’ Church in Pontefract town centre paid for wholly from reserves. St Giles contributes a free interview room.
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
During the year, in October 2018, Citizens Advice nationally announced a new contract with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for local Citizens Advice to provide in-person face to face support for new applicants for Universal Credit. The new service, to be called ‘Help to Claim’ will also provide national telephone and live webchat support to applicants delivered partly via local offices.
CAWD secured funding from national Citizens Advice (which receives the funding centrally from DWP) for 7 full ‘Help to Claim’ posts, with a one-year agreement for £341,549. Planning to set up this new service and recruit the new staff to deliver the service began at the end of the year 18/19 and was in place ready to commence on 1st April 2019.
During the Leadership self-assessment process in January 2019, the CitA assessor awarded CAWD a Green overall score. This is a credit to all members of staff at Wakefield and District. In addition, for Quality of Advice we have consistently achieved green scores for both quality of advice and customer service, green being the highest award. We will seek to maintain these excellent scores for Leadership Self- Assessment and Quality of Advice.
The Future
CEO Liz Halliday informed the Trustees of her intention to retire in the summer of 2019. During the year 18/19 therefore a recruitment process was begun for a new CEO. I was recruited as a result of this process and although I began work after the end of this financial year I think it is pertinent to set down a short paragraph or two about plans for the future.
The Trustees and whole organisation are aware that demand for our services continues to grow. We are aware of specific growing needs of those geographical areas of the district experiencing high deprivation levels. We are also aware of the needs of specific communities who have traditionally suffered from poor access to services and who have high advice needs. We must strive to make our services more accessible in some areas of Wakefield District and with some communities.
We must also constantly strive to use public funds in the most efficient way possible in delivering high levels of service to all those who need our advice and support.
It is also clear that our resources, financial and human, although well managed will continue to be in high demand and we must consider all possible new ways of recruiting volunteers and raising additional funds to train and supervise our advice service.
To this end I have commenced a business review process that will involve all stakeholders commencing in October 2019.The aim will be to review and update the Business Plan ready for the start of the new financial year in April 2020.
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Finance Report
2018/19 was another year where some of our reserves were reinvested in to the organisation to continue stable delivery of core projects. Partnership work with Young Lives and Healthwatch continued for six months this year, with delivery of this service transferring to be delivered in house by Healthwatch in September 2018. Delivery of the Work programme continued for part of this year with the use of sub-contractors. Once again our main two sources of income continued, from WMDC for our Generalist Advice Service and CitA for our Money Advice Service. During the year 2018/19 the bureau incurred an overall deficit of £27,536, with £23,020 being the utilisation of unrestricted reserves and £4,516 being the utilisation of restricted funds.
See below a couple of excerpts from our published accounts:
Total Total 2019 2018 £ £ Total Incoming Resources 630,358 630,737
Total Resources Expended 657,894 643,460
Net (Expenditure)/Income After Transfers and Net Movements in Funds (27,536) (12,723)
Total funds brought forward 535,169 547,892 Total funds carried forward 507,633 535,169
Analysis of Net Assets of Funds Restricted Unrestricted Total Funds Funds 2019 £ £ £ Fund balances at 31 March 2019 are represented by: Fixed Assets 0 0 0 Current Assets 1,340 521,582 522,922 Current Liabilities (0) (15,289) (15,289)
1,340 506,293 507,633
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
The Graph Below shows our main sources of income during 2018/19
Income (%) by Source 2018/19 Town Councils Other Healthwatch 2% 0% 3% Help to Claim 7% Room Hire 1%
WMDC 45%
CitA MAS DAP 42%
Other income includes Investment income of £2,875, we have continued to review our risk assessment on our reserves and as in previous year we have made the decision to split our investments with £85,000 being placed in Santander for one year, £85,000 in Lloyds TSB for one year, £85,000 in Clydesdale & Yorkshire Bank for one year and £85,000 in Nationwide for one year, the amount invested in all these accounts will be reviewed upon their maturity.
On behalf of all the trustees we would like to thank our funders for 2018/19, who were:
Wakefield Metropolitan District Council CitA MAS DAP Healthwatch Normanton Town Council Featherstone Town Council South Elmsall Town Council Upton & North Elmsall Parish Council South Kirkby & Moorthorpe Town Council CitA - DWP Help to Claim NOVA Live Well Programme
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
The graph below shows our main types of expenditure during 2018/19
Expenditure (£) by type 2018/19
600,000 500,000 400,000 300,000 200,000 100,000 0
2018/19 2017/18
We have, as in previous years, maintained expenditure in all areas of delivery at a minimum whilst at the same time ensured maximum delivery of services by investing in our front line staff, which in line with last year makes up 82% of our overall expenditure. We chose to stay with our Independent Examiners from the previous year and once again we would like to thank Mark Upex from Hansons Chartered Accountants for his support in the production of our annual accounts.
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Advice Services
Generalist Service
We changed the way clients access our service last year. The aim of the new system is to deal with client’s issues if possible when they attend the contact centre. Clients have found this very helpful as it means that they do not usually have to wait to get full advice. We have also trained more volunteers to complete disability forms as 56% of clients who access our service are either disabled or have long term health conditions. The main enquiry area for the generalist service is benefits. Disability benefits such as employment support allowance (ESA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) seeing the highest number of enquiries.
We try to make our service assessable to all, clients can get help by email, phone and drop in services which are located across the district. We also use Language Line for clients who need a translation service and BSL for deaf clients as well as a member of staff who signs for some of our clients.
The chart below shows how clients have made their initial contact
Levels of advice
Simple query 36% Phone 50%
Email Advice 7% 7%
Case study
Client had to give up work due to health conditions. Client was unsure what benefits they could claim as they had never claimed benefits before. We assisted the client to complete their Employment and Support form (ESA) we also advised the client to claim personal independence payment (PIP) and completed their PIP form for them. The client was successful in claiming both ESA and PIP and stated that they would not have been able to claim the benefits without our help. Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Outreaches
We have weekly outreaches funded by the town/parish councils at :-
Normanton on a Monday Featherstone, South Elmsall on a Tuesday Upton on a Wednesday South Kirkby & Moorthorpe on a Thursday
We also hold an outreach at Pontefract on Wednesdays
The chart below shows how many clients are seen monthly
Clients seen at outreach monthly 45 40 35 Ponte 30 S.E. 25 20 Norm 15 Feath 10 Upton 5 S.Kirk 0
Volunteer report 2018-19
I would like to thank all our volunteers for all their hard work and dedication to our service. It is becoming more difficult to recruit volunteers - last year we recruited 20 volunteers and 21 volunteers left the service. Feedback from the volunteers exit questionnaire shows that volunteers have had a good experience while volunteering with us. They thought the training was good and felt supported, they also stated that it was a good working environment. The chart below shows the reasons why volunteers left. The two main reasons why volunteers leave is paid work and personal reasons.
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
The chart below shows the reasons why volunteers left
5% retired personal 38% 52% relocated work 5%
Projects
Live Well Grant
This grant is for a year and started in January 2018. The aim of the project is to recruit five volunteers to complete benefit forms for clients, and also train third sector workers on how to navigate our public site.
Research & Campaigning
The main issues we completed evidence forms were, debt, health & social care and benefits.
We took part in the following campaigns:-
Scams awareness Consumer rights at Christmas
Sample of evidence forms submitted to national office
Client being migrated from DLA (disability living allowance) to PIP (personal independence payments) client was on middle rate care and low rate mobility after his medical he scored zero points for both components. We have helped client appeal the decision which has caused the client stress and anxiety.
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Debt Services
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019
FOR CONFIDENTIAL ADVICE AND APPOINTMENTS Telephone 03444 111 444 Monday-Friday, 9.00-5.00pm
E MAIL ADVICE Available through our website: www.wakefielddistrictcab.co.uk
DROP IN TO OUR OFFICE OR ONE OF OUR OUTREACHES
Wakefield Office 27 King Street, Wakefield WF1 2SR
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 9.00 am – 5.00 pm Tuesday 9.00 am – 8.00 pm First Saturday of every month 9.00 am – 1.00 pm
Outreaches
Featherstone Outreach - The Old Town Hall, Wakefield Road, Featherstone WF7 5WW (From 5 November 2019 moving to Featherstone Library & Community Centre, Victoria Street, Off Station Lane, Featherstone, WF7 5BB) Tuesday 10.00-1.00pm
*Havercroft & Ryhill Community Learning Project Outreach - Mulberry Place, Ryhill, WF4 2BD Monday 10.00am-1.00pm
*Hemsworth Outreach – Hemsworth Town Council Community Centre, Bullenshaw Road, Hemsworth, WF9 4NE Friday 10.00am-1.00pm
Normanton Outreach - Normanton Town Hall, High Street, Normanton, WF6 2DZ Monday 10.00-1.00pm
Pontefract Outreach - The St Giles Centre, St Giles Parish Church, Market Place, Pontefract, WF8 1AT. Wednesday 10.00-2.00pm
South Elmsall Outreach - Westfield Resource Centre, Westfield Lane, South Elmsall, WF9 2PU Tuesday 10.00am-1.00pm
South Kirkby & Moorthorpe Outreach - The Conference Room, Moorthorpe Railway Station, Barnsley Road, South Kirkby, WF9 3QF Thursday 10.00am-1.00pm
Upton & North Elmsall Outreach - The Village Hall, Harewood Lane, Upton, Pontefract, WF9 1JB. Wednesday 10.00am-1.00pm
New outreaches commencing 2019
Citizens Advice Wakefield District – Annual Report 2018-2019