20-238 DUWC Annual Report 2020 V5.Indd
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Advice, Support and Representation for all Established 1983 Derbyshire Unemployed Workers’ Centres Annual Report 2020 Contents About us About us .................................................2 Established in April 1983, Derbyshire Unemployed The Chairman writes ........................................4 Workers Centres (DUWC) provides help, advice and representation regarding benefits and credits. This work The Co-ordinator writes .....................................5 is carried out in North and East Derbyshire with three Your Voice Your Rights! .....................................6 main offices in Chesterfield, Shirebrook and Alfreton Universal Credit ...........................................7 The organisation was set up at the instigation of the local Henry Smith Charity ........................................8 Trade Union Council with the financial support of Chesterfield Borough Council. Subsequently North East Derbyshire Tudor Trust ...............................................9 District Council, Bolsover District Council and Amber Valley Help is Here ............................................10-11 Borough Council have given support at various times. The Our Funders 2020. 12 Derbyshire County Council provided financial support open until 2017 when the present Administration was elected. The Statistics .............................................. 13-15 support of the Local Authorities, Town and Parish Councils Around the Area gives DUWC the ability to draw in much inward investment to Chesterfield ..................................... 16-18 the Centres. Bolsover ........................................ 19-21 DUWC is a charity and has 14 trustees drawn from the North East Derbyshire ............................22-24 considerable wealth of support and expertise around the Amber Valley ....................................25-27 organisation. Obituaries ............................................28-29 As well as are well respected advice and representation User Feedback Survey 2020 ................................30 work, the DUWC, as part of a wider network of unemployed workers’ organisations endeavours to keep full Where to get advice .......................................31 employment high up the political agenda and lobbies for Trustees 2019/2020 and thanks. 32 dignity and respect for all benefit recipients. 2 Our Work Volunteers The majority of the people who use our services do so Nearly all the staff at the DUWC started off as volunteers. for benefits and credits advice. Derbyshire Unemployed Many of them have faced redundancy or have had periods Workers’ Centres also supports people who wish to challenge of ill-health before returning to the labour market. This decisions made by the Department for Work and Pensions. year saw the usual comings and goings of volunteers at the In many cases our advisers act as representatives at Appeals Centres. Elizabeth Mullins has left us to train us to be a doctor at Nottingham University. Michelle Francis was successful in Tribunals in Chesterfield, Derby and Nottingham. During the finding employment at Pathways of Chesterfield (a service for Covid pandemic nearly all tribunals have been carried out by the homeless and those at risk of homelessness). Michelle has telephone conference call. expressed her gratitude at the chance she was afforded by the Our organisation proactively looks to make sure that people DUWC helping her to land this job. across Derbyshire are getting all their entitlements. This means With the current pandemic it has been more difficult to that we undertake take-up campaigns and use our website and recruit volunteers. Coming into the organisation, joining the social media to alert people to the help we offer in order that ranks of our organisation is Pat Boyle, who brings a wealth of they can maximise their income. experience to the organisation. Our new lottery community This year we dealt with 5,202 enquiries. The lockdown, due to funded project ‘Help is Here’ has recruited two new volunteers. the pandemic, meant for a period we were only able to offer a Originally from the Ukraine, Mykhaylo Motrynets is helping telephone helpline service. In July we were able to safely open with the translation from Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian our three main offices at Chesterfield, Alfreton and Shirebrook speakers. Alena Kupcova, from Slovakia is acting as our and shortly afterwards, during the summer, we were able to interpreter from Czech and Slovakian speakers. open six of our outreach offices. Many thanks go to our long term volunteers Keith O’Neill, The Centre brought in £4,473,369 through advice work, Lyndsey Nichols, Dick Banker, Janet Fields, Jon Jarvis, Andy money that goes into the local economy helping to save and King, David Eccles, Rosie Smith and Graham Baxter. Please create jobs, so supporting local business. contact us if you would like to volunteer with the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers’ Centres. ose Hill R E 1 a s t N 3 The Chairman writes The DUWC have been in existence since 1983. the importance of the core services With the Bank of England forecasting that the needed to support our people through coronavirus crisis will push the UK economy into its difficult times. Our advice services are deepest recession in 300 years, unemployment will accessible in the mixed town and rural undoubtedly rise to 1980’s levels at the very least. setting of the former North Derbyshire It is important to recognise that an organisation coalfield. The increasing reliance on Graham Baxter MBE, Chairman of DUWC’s that was set up precisely to help alleviate the issues telephone and on-line services in order Management accompanying mass unemployment is still in a good to engage with the social security Committee position to continue its work. system is going to be a challenge to many within our communities and our Throughout the lockdown DUWC staffed a helpline from core services are going to be a lifeline. Alongside this 8am until 4pm and opened up the three main offices in issue is the huge number of people who will need to Chesterfield, Alfreton and Shirebrook as soon as it was access benefits and credits for the first time and maybe safe to do so. Those running charitable food deliveries unaware of its complexities and thus needing help. out of Chesterfield reported that approximately 30% of people receiving help had no internet access and often It is vitally important that all our Local Authorities no mobile phone credit to ring for help. That is why we continue to recognize the role of the DUWC and opened up our services as soon as we could. fund our vital service providing face-to-face outreach advice throughout some of the most deprived areas of Like many community organisations, DUWC have had to Derbyshire. Derbyshire County Council and North East become more project focused with a constant emphasis Derbyshire District Council need to reconsider their on new work. This has coincided with the squeeze reckless decisions to withdraw funding and do the best on core funding from Local Government sources. by their constituents. Clearly the fallout from the pandemic has highlighted 4 steadily increased. We The Co-ordinator writes are now braced for an It has been an unusual year! DUWC has avalanche of enquiries as been successful in attracting funding to the unemployment begins to organisation from a variety of sources. The bite and those on benefits face a renewed squeeze on contribution of our volunteer David Eccles their entitlements. in helping to put together the bids has been outstanding. In February the lottery community With many organisations fund began to grant aid our ‘Help is Here’ still not open and the project that is worth over £300,000 over five withdrawal of many mental years. The Tudor trust is supporting our ‘Street health services, we are Talker’ project for £120,000 over three years increasingly dealing starting from October 1 2020. with people who need Colin Hampton, services that we cannot Co-ordinator of the Notification of these successes was swiftly followed offer. Our staff are doing Derbyshire Unemployed by the lockdown and all the challenges that brings. their best in difficult Workers’ Centres With the help of our supporting local authorities, circumstances but the risk assessments were carried out and the necessary infrastructure of support for vulnerable people has changes to working practices were made. As a result been seriously damaged by a decade of government we were able to open safely at the beginning of July. cuts. Lessons need to be learnt from this pandemic The nature of our work has changed considerably experience. In the meantime, we will do our utmost during the pandemic. In the first instance the majority to help Derbyshire people, maximising their incomes, of calls to our helpline were from people seeking working together giving them a voice as well as charity rather than advocacy. As the lockdown lobbying on their behalf. eased and tribunals began to be heard (nearly all on telephone conference calls) our workload has ose Hill R E 1 a s t N 5 Your Voice Your Rights! DUWC has continued to support calls for immediate changes to Universal Credit (UC). We have supported the lobbying Why we need a Welfare Charter of Government to take urgent action to stop punishing the Despite the United Kingdom being one of the richest unemployed and disabled people with punitive benefit sanctions. Our experience and evidence has consistently shown nations in the world, in 2019 the UK had 14 million people that benefit