Welfare Reform: In whose interest?

Last Thursday saw the publication of the UK Coalition Government’s Welfare Reform Bill, which will now begin its passage through Parliament and onto the statute book probably some time later this year.

Most of the contents of the Bill (which can be seen here) are familiar enough, having been well publicised in the White Paper which preceded last week’s First Reading in the House of Commons.  The key ‘highlights’ are:

• the introduction, from 2013, of a new Universal Credit to replace Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Income Support, Income based JSA and Income based ESA
• increased focus on ‘work related requirements’ and a ‘claimant commitment’ (with extended benefit sanctions for non-compliance
• the replacement, from 2013/14, of Disability Living Allowance by a new Personal Independence Payment
• removal of Discretionary Social Fund (Community Care Grants, Budgeting Loans, Crisis Loans) and replacement by arrangements yet to be determined by the Scottish Government.

Fortunately, one of the White Paper proposals which didn’t make it into the published Bill was the suggestion that unemployed claimants should have their housing benefit cut by 10% after 12 months if they couldn’t find a job.   The argument that this measure would simply have led to increased homelessness was so compelling that it was sensibly dropped.

While cautiously welcoming the intent to unify and simplify the current over-complex benefit system through the new Universal Credit, CHAI has some concerns over the way in which the reforms may impact in practice – particularly given the extent of cuts to the benefit system already announced in last year’s Spending Review and Budget.

At the end of this month we will see the impact of the previous Government’s policies as those still in receipt of Incapacity Benefit (IB) start to be re-assessed under the tougher Employment & Support Allowance (ESA) rules (ESA replaced IB for new claimants in 2008).  This is predicted to increase the number of claimant appeals against adverse decisions, placing even more pressure on an Independent Appeal Tribunal system which is already creaking under the pressure.  The level of ESA related appeals is already putting considerable pressure on claimants, advice agencies and the appeals system – with it currently taking anything from 6 to 9 months for appeals to be heard.

CHAI currently has 190 appeals pending (submitted on behalf of claimants, but no date yet fixed for the hearing).  Our success rate at these Independent Appeal Tribunals is running at over 75%, so it is clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with the original decision making process.  This is a justice issue, with the length of time it takes for cases to come to appeal adding insult to the original injury.  An issue which was highlighted in the media this week, with ‘The Herald’ reporting on two cases where claimants have died while awaiting their appeals to be heard.  CHAI has also seen this happen recently in a case where, with the consent of the claimant’s family, we went on to represent at the delayed tribunal which took place after the claimant had sadly died.

The extra 2.5m people who may now be sucked into the appeals system following the rolling out of the new medical assessments of existing IB claimants will simply add to the these problems.

The proposals around the replacement of DLA with Personal Independence Payment have caused concern among Disability organisations.  The Disability Alliance estimates that up to 750,000 disabled people may lose support under the new provisions, as the Government aims to remove £2.1Billion from the current DLA system.

CHAI is one of the organisations that will find itself at the coal face of the welfare reforms as they start to impact on individuals, families and communities.  Our Advice Service is already under significant pressure from demands for income, debt and housing advice.  Many of the clients of our Addictions and Housing Support Teams will be among the first to have their health and benefit positions re-assessed under the new ESA rules.  Work we have been doing to promote employability for those most marginal to the labour market has clearly demonstrated that there is no single straightforward path from benefit to employment that works for all people, and that we will have to ensure support is always available for those who can’t easily be catered for by mass programmes.

Ironically enough, on the day that the Welfare Bill was published at Westminster, I found myself in Glasgow at the Poverty Alliance’s ‘Scottish Assembly for Tackling Poverty’ listening to a range of academic speakers point out where we were failing to meet the Child Poverty targets that were established under the previous Government, and how things were heading in the wrong direction.  In fact, most child poverty now takes place within families who are in work, indicating that without a more progressive ‘joining up’ of the Tax/Benefit system the Welfare Reform Bill’s aim to move more people into employment will not, of itself, address the problems of poverty.

Even more depressingly ironic, the publication of the Welfare Reform Bill occurred at the end of the same week in which, with unfortunate timing, Barclays Bank reported paying Corporation Tax of a mere 1% on £Billion profits .  One of the academic findings reported at the ‘Scottish Assembly for Tackling Poverty’ was that the gap between those at the lowest end of the income scale, and those at the highest, has increased in recent years.

The poor get poorer; the rich get richer – and organisations like CHAI continue to be important in addressing and alleviating the symptoms of poverty in our communities.

CHAI can be contacted through our website at www.chaiedinburgh.org.uk.

Building Social Capital

CHAI is currently engaged on a piece of project work aimed at tackling health inequalities and building social capital in Wester Hailes.  One specific aspect of this project involves working in partnership with two local Children & Families Centres, targeting Fathers who have varied levels of engagement in the care and support of their children, and who are subject to some degree of Social Work intervention.

But what exactly is ‘social capital’?  Well, one definition we can look to is:

“The resources people develop and draw on to increase their confidence and self-esteem, their sense of connectedness, belonging, and ability to bring about change in their lives and communities.”¹

Its about building the links and social bonds between individuals that enable them to develop strong networks, establish good levels of support and promote positive relationships.

The ‘Fathers Group’ is a vehicle through which we aim to build social capital among a group who can often feel marginalised on a number of levels.  Their engagement with the Children & Families Centres is often peripheral because they will not generally be the principal child carer and the contact arrangements with their children will often be erratic.

The focus of the Group has been to increase the confidence of the fathers to interact effectively with their children; to promote positive relationships within the wider family units; to develop a peer support network; and to provide a forum for the sharing of information and discussion of issues of common interest.

A groupwork approach has been developed in which the participants take a lead role in identifying the issues and activities they wish to focus on.  Some of the sessions revolve around facilitated discussions and information exchange between the men, others are much more interactive and activity focused:  all involve challenges of one sort or another – physical, mental and emotional.

Occasionally lightening the mood is always important in these programmes and a recent session saw the men decide to go on a group visit to the ‘SkyRide’ at Edinburgh International Climbing Arena.

It’s still early days with the Father’s Group but the feedback from the men and from the staff at the Children & Families Centres has been very upbeat.

The fathers report increased confidence in their relationships with their children; the C&F Centre report increased engagement by the men with their staff and a general reduction in social work input around the families.

Ultimately the aim is to enable the men to have strong and supportive friendships and contacts to draw upon and that they have better community connections.  We also hope that the participants, who may have experienced inequality, will be better able to influence decisions that affect their lives and that of their community.

It’s all about building that social capital, and putting it in the bank.

You can see some more photos of the Father Group’s visit to the SkyRide on CHAI’s Facebook Page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Community-Help-Advice-Initiative-CHAI/105152659549253

Note: ¹ Social Capital, Health and Wellbeing: A planning and evaluation toolkit (Edinburgh Health Inequalities Standing Group)

Evictions … and how to prevent them

Shelter Scotland today published their annual update on trends in Scotland around eviction actions initiated by social landlords for rent arrears.  It makes for interesting reading, and can be viewed here.   The encouraging news is that across Scotland evictions by social landlords (local authorities and registered housing associations) are down by a third on the previous year.

Obviously, there are local variations in these figures but CHAI has, naturally enough, a particular interest in the picture in Edinburgh.

Since April 2009 CHAI, along with partners Granton Information Centre, Four Square and Move On, has been operating a City wide Housing Advice Service – commissioned by the City of Edinburgh Council and focused on preventing homelessness.  As well as providing housing advice and information in a range of neighbourhood, prison and schools settings, the Edinburgh Housing Advice Partnership has been delivering an advice and representation service at Edinburgh Sheriff Court for tenants who are subject to legal proceedings to recover their tenancy – mainly on the grounds of rent arrears.

It is encouraging to see that the City wide trend over the period that EHAP has been operating has seen reductions across a series of key indicators around eviction cases. However, we have been keen not just to focus on representing the rights of tenants at the legal sharp end of the evictions process,  but also to promote earlier interventions aimed at resolving difficulties before they become so entrenched that Court action – and potential eviction – follows.

To that end, since last summer, EHAP has been working with key partners, the City of Edinburgh Council, Prospect Community Housing Association, Dunedin Canmore Housing Association and the Cyrenians Homelessness Prevention Service to promote an Early Intervention Rent Arrears pilot project in the South-West area of the City.  What we’ve collectively been trying to do is to reach out to those tenants who, for one reason or another, tend not to respond to landlords’ traditional attempts to contact them when they start to show early signs of rent arrears.  These are often the cases that landlords end up having to take to Court because of that lack of earlier engagement.

We produced a postcard that landlords distributed to their non-responsive tenants, offering independent advice and support from EHAP and the Cyrenians HPS – and gradually we started to see contact from tenants at an earlier stage in the arrears recovery process than had typically been the case.

This new approach was underpinned by genuine collaborative working between the organisations involved; promoting real culture change.

The effectiveness of this early intervention approach can be seen in the results.  The table below, relating to City of Edinburgh Council tenancies, shows a generally positive trend in key eviction indicators across the City comparing the year 2009/10 with the previous year.  However, that positive trend becomes even more marked when the figures are broken down into the South-West Neighbourhood, where the Early Intervention pilot has been operating.

Area	2008-09	2009-10	Difference
Notices of Proceedings Issued
City	1159	944	-19%
South West	407	253	-38%
Cases Lodged in Court
City	1273	753	-41%
South West	443	216	-51%
Decree for Eviction Granted
City	681	492	-28%
South West	277	168	-39%
Evictions Carried Out
City	263	175	-33%
South West	98	55	-44%

This encouraging trend has continued into the current year, with the first 6 months (April to September 2010) showing that across the City, the Council had commenced 54% less legal actions for eviction than in the corresponding period the previous year (2009/10). The reduction in commencement of proceedings has, again, been even more pronounced in South-West – with a reduction of 78% in eviction actions started.  At the same time, the Council report that the levels of rent arrears has also fallen – by £500,000.  This is real win, win territory.

And it’s not just Council tenancies.  One of the Registered Social Landlord partners involved in the South-West Early Intervention pilot,  Prospect Community Housing Association, reports a 25% reduction in their legal actions since the start of the project – and that their Housing Officers and tenants are now much more routinely engaging with Advice and Support agencies prior to Court Action becoming necessary.

Win, win again because the landlords are incurring less expense and less staff time chasing rent arrears and the increased engagement of tenants with EHAP and the Cyrenians HPS leads to their receiving advice and support which maximise their income and reduce the risk of homelessness.

Shelter’s Report highlights that the national trend reflects real changes in policy and practice by many social landlords. CHAI’s experience locally shows that joint working and culture change can produce real and tangible benefits for everyone involved.

Win, win …

Developing Positive Partnerships

Partnership working is at the heart of effective service delivery.  Alan Ross, of CHAI’s Development Team, takes a look at some of the positive partnership working that he and his colleagues are currently engaged in:

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Over the past year a primary focus of the Development Team has been on building stronger links with statutory and voluntary organizations in the local community. We have done this by adopting a pro-active attitude and being open to approaching organizations with our ideas. In fact, in testament to potential benefits of this approach, almost every piece of work we have been involved in this year has involved a significant degree of partnership working. We’ve brokered relationships in a number of ways through utilizing past associations and friendships and keeping our eyes and ears open for opportunities.

Partnership working is of course a dominant theme in today’s voluntary sector and something we all have to adjust and accommodate ourselves to then idea of. The message from above is that, in terms of securing funding, partnership working is the way to go and bids or tenders highlighting partnerships will be looked at favourably in the future. Aside of the pragmatic reasons for developing partnerships we also believe that working alongside local organizations offers us an invaluable opportunity to reach out to more members of the community and provide an enhanced service.

As such it is useful to look at a few examples the partnership working we have been developing this year and the various ways in which pieces of work have evolved.

Fathers Group – In partnership with Sighthill and Hailesland Children’s Centre:  A major piece of work for us this year has been the development of a fathers group in partnership with the two local children’s centres. This partnership evolved through our historical link with the children’s centres nurtured through our family and young persons support service that often supported clients using the centres facilities. We approached Hailesland Centre with the idea of piloting a group and they jumped at the opportunity. The pilot sessions went well, despite the lack of an activity budget. We later applied for some funding via a health inequalities and building social capital tender which we were successful in getting. Since then the group has gone from strength to strength creating opportunities on a weekly basis for fathers to develop supportive peer relationships and spend quality time with their children as well as filling a much felt gap in service provision.

Calder’s Community Flat Drop in Advice service – In partnership with Edinburgh City Council:  A particularly interesting piece of work which has developed in part out of our employability contract. We were originally asked by the Council to focus some of our resources on the Calder’s neighbourhood as the area is considered remote from some of the services provided in the wider community. We initially hit upon the idea of providing a drop in advice service out of the local community flat in one of the neighbourhoods high rise flats. We then brokered input from the Councils Community Safety and Rents Team who began attending and offering outreach advice. The service gathered some attention from the media and after receiving positive feedback from the Council measures have been put in place to properly develop the flat into a genuine community hub where a wide range of services of benefit to the local community can be delivered.

EVOLS Environmental Volunteering – In partnership with Dunedin Canmore Housing Association and the Edinburgh & Lothian Greenspace Trust: The EVOLS group aims to bring together young people who are unemployed to undertake various pieces of practical environmental work. The partnership evolved out of a relationship we had with a Community Learning and Development worker who was seconded to Dunedin Canmore to develop their youth services. The worker, alongside one of the CHAI Development Team staff, had been involved in environmental volunteering projects in the past and had come to appreciate their value as both a method for delivering youth work and a way of giving something back to the local community. The involvement of the Lothian & Greenspace Trust has meant that we have been able to carry out some work they have been commissioned to do, much of which has involved the regeneration of the local Hailes Quarry Park.

These pieces of work are the tip of the iceberg in terms of our ambitions for the Development Team. We have been doing some fantastic work of late which has been generating regular positive feedback. We intend on utilising the CHAI blog as a way of making the community aware of the work we are undertaking, highlighting real examples of the ways in which the community and individuals are benefiting, as well as exploring some of the reasons why we are so firmly committed to the work we do.

We’re always open to suggestions for new areas of work, so if you have any, comment away – or contact us on 0131 442 2100.

Housing Benefit Reform Risks Homelessness Increase

The UK Government produced a White Paper on Welfare Reform last month –  ’Universal Credit: welfare that works’ (available here).

Among the raft of new proposals to reform the, admittedly over-complicated, welfare system lurks a worrying set of reforms to Housing Benefit, building on changes which had already been announced as part of the emergency budget earlier in the year, and as part of the more recent Comprehensive Spending Review.

Of course, for ‘reforms’ and ‘changes’, we can read ‘cuts’, and it is the extent and potential impact of these cuts that are causing significant alarm to those of us who work with people who are already financially marginalised, struggling and who will now face an increased risk that they may lose their home.

The earliest impact of the cuts will be felt by those in the private sector, where Local Housing Allowance (Housing Benefit for Private Sector tenants) will be subject to significant restriction from January 2012.   Figures released by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) indicate that a change in the way that Local Housing Allowance is calculated will lead to almost 6,500 Edinburgh households losing anything from £300 to £1,400 a year.  This currently goes straight towards help with housing costs, and the loss of that level of income – for people already financially insecure – may end up pushing people into homelessness as they struggle to afford rent charges.  Housing charity, Shelter Scotland, reported earlier this month that 84% of Scottish Local Authorities will see low income households losing up to £30 per month as a direct consequence of these cuts.

To make matters worse, from April 2013, a further reform will potentially impact on Housing Benefit recipients across all tenures.  It is proposed that those in receipt of Job Seekers Allowance – who currently may get all their rent costs met by Housing Benefit – will have their Housing Benefit cut by 10% after 12 months of unemployment.   Housing campaigners estimate that this change alone could result in over 200,000 additional homelessness cases across the UK, where over 4.7m people rely on Housing Benefit to help meet rent costs.

All this comes at a time when the Scottish Government has set a target to remove priority need  assessments for homeless applicants by 2012, a move which it is accepted will already increase pressure on local authorities to meet the needs of homeless people.

With the wider economy already in the grip of a recession, and the costs of food and fuel on the rise, the worry is that we’re going to see a ‘perfect storm’, which will impact on the poorest and most vulnerable sections of our communities.  We have to be ready to respond.

CHAI is lead partner in the Edinburgh Housing Advice Partnership (EHAP), which plays a key role in providing advice, information and representation aimed at preventing homelessness across all tenure types, and across the whole of the City of Edinburgh.  We’re gearing up to respond to increased demand for housing advice.  A demand that is already evident, and one which – as we can see – is only likely to become more insistent.

EHAP can be contacted on 0845 302 4607, or through the EHAP website.

Joining up Service Delivery

Well, we’ve had the UK Coalition Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review.  We’ve had the subsequent Scottish Budget handed down from Holyrood … now all we wait for is the local budget from the City of Edinburgh Council, and confirmation of where the pain will be felt.

We know there will be cuts – we’ve been softened up for it ever since the Conservative/Lib-Dem Coalition took up the reins of power at Westminster in May.  We know, in the Edinburgh context, that these cuts are going to be serious:  we’ve been hearing that message loud and clear from the Council administration and officers.

Some Local Authorities, in response to what is coming, have started talking about pooling resources; joining up the way they work in areas of common interest.  There has been some talk that those organisations in the Voluntary Sector who are reliant on public funding need to be thinking along similar lines.

It’s all about maximising value from reducing resources; joined up thinking leading to joined up working.

At CHAI we like to think we’ve been doing this for years.  We were designed specifically to take a broad and holistic view of social welfare; to build services around individuals and families.  The range of services CHAI provides: advice, information and representation; housing support; substance misuse support; youth and community development; early intervention family support; and furniture recycling – and the various office bases and outreach venues from which they are delivered – provide, literally and figuratively, a range of ‘entry points’ into the wider, holistic service.  A genuine ‘One Stop Shop’, which – when it works properly – delivers a range of appropriate social welfare interventions, even where the service user was initially unaware of the existence of those services or supports.

A new tenant may initially contact CHAI because they had heard that we can provide basic furniture items (Furniture Recycling Service), but that initial contact may open up those ‘doors’ into those other services about which the enquirer had no knowledge:  Housing Support, to help a sustainable transition into a new community and onto independent living;  Advice Services to provide specific interventions around maximising income or addressing debt issues;  Substance Misuse Support if there are any drug or alcohol issues that might inhibit integration to the community.

At a time when the public purse is being squeezed more tightly than ever before, it is even more important that value is provided from those resources.  Joining up service delivery is one way that CHAI achieves that value.