University of Salford and Salford City Council research into the experience of Universal Credit.

So this is one for those of our advisers who live or work in the Salford area of Greater Manchester. Nevertheless we think it will be of wider interest to the rest of you. The University of Salford and Salford City Council are doing research into the experience of Universal Credit.

How has Universal Credit impacted you, and what can we do about it?

We know that Universal Credit is having a huge impact on Salford’s Residents and family, friends and organisations that support them, but what exactly does that look like? What can we do about it? The University of Salford and Salford City Council are working together to answer those questions and you can help!

Can I take part?

Are you a Salford resident in receipt of Universal Credit? The answer is yes!

How do I take part?

Contact us and we will arrange a time and date for the interview at the place of your choice. We want to know how people’s experience with Universal Credit are changing over time, so we would like you to undertake two interviews, the first one now, and the second one in 6-8 months. We would like to ask you about your experiences with Universal Credit, its impact on your life and finances and what you think about it as well as what kind of support you have found useful.

In recognition of your time and knowledge, you will receive £10 for undertaking each interview.

Interviews will last about an hour. You do not have to talk about anything you don’t want to discuss and you can withdraw from the research at any time. We will record the interview with your permission, but will take notes if you prefer. Everything you say will be treated in confidence. Your name will not be used in any published reports and we will not pass your details on to anybody else. We will also keep you informed about the research findings.

Want more information?

If you want to ask any questions about the research or want to know more about taking part, then please text, call or email Andrea Gibbons at 07773 948 841 or

a

dot

r

dot

gibbons

1

at

salford

dot

ac

dot

uk

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Agenda for this Friday’s GMWRAG meeting in Salford.

The agenda for this week’s GMWRAG meeting in Salford can now be downloaded from here.

The meeting will be hosted in Salford by their Salford Welfare Rights and Debt Advice Service on Friday the 4th of October 2019 in Committee room 3 of the Civic Centre, Chorley Road, Swinton M27 5DA. Doors open at 1:30pm for a 2pm start and we hope that this will enable those of you here for the day because of the a..m. GMWRAG GM UC meeting to at least be able to get a decent lunch. Details of the agenda for the UC meeting will also be coming out this afternoon barring a disaster.

Our speaker as per the post earlier today will be member Norman Beverley. Nowadays Norman is Head of Advice Service at Europia and he’ll be coming along to give us a comprehensive update on the European Settlement Scheme. 

Travel to Swinton is easy. Parking is not. We cannot overstate that parking in Swinton is hard to find; generally time-limited and may involve having to go out and move your vehicle part way through the day or meeting.

Trains to and from Swinton railway station are every 30 minutes and it’s a 12 minute walk from there to the Civic Centre. Entry to the building is along the left side of the town hall past the registry office. The 36, 37 and 38 buses will bring you right outside the town hall/civic centre but you can also get a 34., V1 or V2 to Worsley Road and then walk 10 minutes up Partington Lane.

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New job advert on the GMWRAG web site.

People Directorate

Welfare Rights & Debt Advice Service

Welfare Rights Adviser (Direct Payments)

18 hours (job share)

Scale 2C £20,456 – £22,434

Scale 3A £23,166 – £25,694

Scale 3B   £25,694 – £28,203

[Pro Rata. Scale depends on level of experience and ability]

Personalisation of services provided by local authorities led to an increase in the number of people opting to use a direct payment from Adult Social Care to organise their own care. The flexibility offered by taking a direct payment has increased the number of people who choose to employ a personal assistant to provide the support they require. This post is designed to provide complex benefit advice to those people who chose this option. It involves working closely with disabled people, their carers and social work staff in order to identify benefit issues, offer advice on the options available to maximise income for service use and the potential employee. The post holder will join a team of Welfare Rights staff dedicated to ensuring that users of domiciliary services receive their correct benefit entitlement and can make an informed choice about the way their care needs are met.

The successful applicant will need to have:-

• proven experience and expertise in Welfare Benefit advice work
• a well developed understanding of Direct Payment legislation
• an understanding of how charges for non-residential care services are worked out
• an understanding of care commissioning procedures
• experience of working with disabled people
• the ability to communicate complex information clearly and concisely

Further information available from https://www.greater.jobs/search-and-apply/job-details/SF-14547

Closing date: Friday 16^th March 2018   

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First presentation available from the January 2018 GMWRAG meeting in Salford.

There are a lot of materials to upload from the recent GMWRAG meeting in Salford so apologies in advance for doing this in a slightly piecemeal manner. All presentations at meetings are permanently located within Our Meetings sub pages if you can’t find posts like this which initially announce their availability.

Our a.m. speaker in Salford was Catherine Connors, Commissioning Manager from the People’s Directorate in Salford City Council. Her presentation on “The development and delivery of the Tackling Poverty strategy in Salford – the role of specialist advice providers.” is now available for download.

Summary notes from the presentation will be available as part of the minutes

Anyone wishing to view the strategy itself, titled “NO ONE LEFT BEHIND: A joint strategy from the Salford City Mayor and Salford Youth Mayor“ can view/download it from here.

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New Salford job vacancies on GMWRAG.

GMWRAG is pleased to announce the first of a number job vacancies we will be posting this week. First up a couple of vacancies from Salford City Councils Welfare Rights and Debt Advice Service. Unusually the emphasis is on debt advice.

Details of the posts are on our job vacancies pages and are already up on Rightsnet and Greater Jobs and details of how to apply are on both sites and below. In the meantime, anyone wanting to know more about the posts can email Steve Quinn or ring him on 0161 793 3295.

 

 

HEALTH and SOCIAL CARE

Welfare Rights & Debt Advice Service

DEBT ADVISER (Early Help)

Scale: 3B £25,694 – £28,203

Ref: 50163553

This post is primarily to provide debt advice, benefits advice, budgeting advice to vulnerable families identified by Children’s Services.

The job involves providing accessible and high quality debt advice to people in the City focusing on vulnerable families as part of an integrated ‘early help’ offer to families in Salford. This would include undertaking individual case-work, income maximisation and outlining potential strategies for dealing with clients’ debts, and preparing cases for court where necessary. Keeping abreast of developments in credit and debt recovery case law will be important and the post will also involve providing training and acting as a consultant to front-line staff.

You should have proven experience and expertise in debt advice for at least two years. Being able to act as an advocate on behalf of claimants is essential. You should be able to work on your own as well as part of a team, and be committed to the promotion of anti-poverty & social inclusion work.

The post carries an entitlement to a casual car user’s allowance.

Closing date: Friday 23^rd June 2017  

You can apply via Greater Jobs.

____________________________________________

 

 

HEALTH and SOCIAL CARE

Welfare Rights & Debt Advice Service

DEBT ADVISER (Tenancy Sustainment)

Temporary – 12 months

Scale: 3B £25,694 – £28,203

Ref: 50161459

This post is primarily to provide debt advice, benefits advice, budgeting advice to those affected by the ‘Benefit Cap’.

The job involves providing accessible and high quality debt advice to people in the City focusing on those affected by the ‘Benefit Cap’ who are tenants of social landlords. This would include undertaking individual case-work, income maximisation and offering practical assistance in retaining accommodation eg. applying for Discretionary Housing Payments and preparing cases for court where necessary. Keeping abreast of developments in credit and debt recovery case law will be important and the post will also involve providing training and acting as a consultant to front-line staff.

You should have proven experience and expertise in debt advice for at least two years. Being able to act as an advocate on behalf of claimants is essential. You should be able to work on your own as well as part of a team, and be committed to the promotion of anti-poverty & social inclusion work.

The post carries an entitlement to a casual car user’s allowance.

Closing date: Friday 23^rd June 2017  

You can apply via Greater Jobs.

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New year. New opportunities. Total lack of imagination on post titles.

Who knew we’d start 2017 on such a positive note eh?

GMWRAG is pleased to start the year of running rather than walking with two job opportunities within Salford Welfare Rights and Debt Advice Service. Full details of these posts are below for those of you who get the emails but can’t access this site. You can also view and apply via the site which has replaced YourCouncilJobs. For those of you who don’t know this is called GreaterJobs. You will see these same jobs advertised with our friends on Rightsnet and you may note that the link on there refers to YourCouncilJobs. Please note that whilst it does redirect to GreaterJobs it only redirects to the home page and we have already had some queries asking whether the jobs exist or have been pulled. They have not. It’s just an inaccurate redirect.

If you can’t find this post in future then please remember all current vacancies are advertised on our current vacancies page up the point of their closing date whereupon we move them to our archive.

HEALTH and SOCIAL CARE

Welfare Rights & Debt Advice Service

2 x Welfare Rights Adviser (Carers)

Scale 2C £20,456 – £22,434 (Ref: 50025907)
Scale 3A £23,166 – £25,694
Scale 3B £25,694 – £28,203
[Scale depends on level of experience and ability]

The Care Act introduced additional responsibilities for local authorities in relation to Carers. These two posts have been newly created in order to provide benefit advice to carers and the ‘cared for’ to help maintain their financial independence. It involves working closely with disabled people, their carers and social work staff in order to identify benefit issues and offer advice on the options available to maximise income for service use and the local authority via charging for services.

The post holder will join a team of Welfare Rights staff dedicated to ensuring that users of Social Services domiciliary services receive their correct benefit entitlement and can make an informed choice about the way that their care needs are met.

The successful applicant will need to have:-

• Proven experience and expertise in Welfare Benefits advice work;
• An understanding of charging policies for non-residential services
• Experience of working with disabled people;
• The ability to communicate complex information clearly and concisely;

The post carries an entitlement to a casual user’s car allowance.

Please be aware that this post is subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and that you will be required to meet the cost of the DBS check – currently £44.00. The payment for this will be deducted from your first four months’ salary payments at a rate of £11.00 per month. If you do not commence employment for any reason but the DBS has been processed, you will be sent an invoice for the payment of £44.00.

Closing date: Friday 27th January 2017

Job Description.pdf
Person Specification.pdf

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Welfare Rights & Debt Advice Service

WELFARE RIGHTS OFFICER
(Health)

Scale 3B £25,694 – £28,203 (Ref: 50004034)

This post is funded by Salford Primary Care Trust to address poverty and health inequalities through the provision of Welfare Rights advice in primary health care settings

The job involves conducting advice sessions in local health centres/GP practices, undertaking individual case-work and representation, providing training and acting as a consultant to primary health care professionals and promoting benefit take-up work amongst key patient groups.

You should have proven experience and expertise in benefits work for at least two years. Being able to undertake tribunal representation and advocate on behalf of claimants is essential. You should be able to work on your own as well as part of a team, and be committed to the promotion of anti-poverty & social inclusion work.

The post carries an entitlement to a casual car user’s allowance.

Please be aware that this post is subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and that you will be required to meet the cost of the DBS check – currently £44.00. The payment for this will be deducted from your first four months’ salary payments at a rate of £11.00 per month. If you do not commence employment for any reason but the DBS has been processed, you will be sent an invoice for the payment of £44.00.

Closing date: Friday 27th January 2017

Job Description.pdf
Person Specification.pdf

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Manchester GMWRAG meeting agenda now available plus important information if you are attending.

The agenda for the Manchester GMWRAG meeting is now available for download. The minutes of the last meeting remain available from our meetings pages.

As we have previously detailed, the meeting takes place at Manchester Town Hall on Friday the 17th of June 2016. We can now confirm that we have 3 speakers around the ongoing concerns on the impact of benefit sanctions.

The speakers are:

• Catherine Connors, Skills and Work Board Business Manager – talking about “DWP Benefit Conditionality and Sanctions In Salford – One Year On”.
• Dr. Lisa Scullion, Research Fellow at Salford Housing and Urban Studies Unit at the University of Salford – talking about www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk.
• Kester Dean, Salford Unemployed and Community Resource Centre – talking about legal challenges to benefit sanctions and conditionality.

You can find more about the speakers via our previous post.

The meeting will open at 9:30am for a 10:00am start. Please note that, despite our having three speakers, the meeting is a half day and it is intended to close the meeting no later than 1:00pm.

IMPORTANT

As per previous posts about this meeting it remains the case that we find ourselves in the unusual position of needing to ask members for an indication as to who will be attending the meeting so passes can be issued in advance for visitors. We are checking out whether we can herd you into one meeting place and take you through security but, in the meantime, members should email Robin Serjeant at Manchester at r.serjeant@manchester.gov.uk to confirm your attendance.

If you do not confirm your attendance to Robin we cannot guarantee that you will be allowed in. There is currently additional security in place because of the Referendum.

The two of you who contacted us to say you could attend the Thursday meeting… well we hope you can make the Friday. The other one… don’t worry we’ll forward all your emails to Robin.

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Sanctions report goes viral.

Following on from yesterdays flurry of posts on sanctions we are pleased to note that the Salford report “DWP Benefit Conditionality and Sanctions in Salford – One Year On.” has now gone viral nationally. In what The Independent is claiming as an “exclusive” titled “Benefit sanctions lead claimants to suicide, crime and destitution, warns damning report”

Ashley Cowburn (@ashcowburn) writes that “Contrary to the DWP’s insistence that the threat of sanctioning encourages social security claimants to move from benefits into work, the system at present causes “damage to the wellbeing of vulnerable claimants and can lead to hunger, debt and destitution”, the report’s authors claim.”

“The report says that the rate of people being sanctioned in the area has not reduced over the previous 12 month period. But, critically, it adds: “Register sizes are decreasing and we believe this is in part due to a growing number of ‘disappeared’. These are claimants who drop their benefit claim or who move off benefit but do not take up employment. The Government has refused to publish destination data.”

DWP have now been forced into a response to the report which says little more than “A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “It’s only right that there are conditions attached to receiving benefits – this is nothing new. Sanctions are a long-standing part of the welfare system and are only applied where people fail to engage with the support on offer.”

This neglected to mention that, whilst historically sanctions have formally been around since the Poor Laws they were usually directed at preventing people relying upon the state, or, somewhat ironically aimed at local communities failing to fulfill what we would now characterise as their big society” obligations. Compare and contrast this to the scenario nowadays where sanctioning claimants is rife but the sanctioning of work providers usually involves the award of another contract.

At the time of writing the article has been shared nearly 700 times and has attracted more than 200 comments. Feel free to add to that as, as ever, the comments section can make for depressing reading. This is an important message and we need to get people hearing it and acting.

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New job vacancy on the GMWRAG web site.

Salford City Council

Community, Health and Social Care

Welfare Rights and Debt Advice Service

 

WELFARE RIGHTS OFFICER (MENTAL HEALTH)

Job reference: 50004029

Location: Civic Centre. Swinton.

Salary: £25,440 – £27,924 pa.

Salary Grade: Grade 3B.

Working Pattern: Full-time.

Working Hours: 36 hours pw.

Contract Type: Fixed-term, maternity cover.

Closing date:  11:59pm on the 31st of May 2016.

This post is subject to an enhanced DBS check.

Temporary cover is required for this post whilst the post-holder is on maternity leave. The period will run from mid July 2016 until the post-holder returns. It is anticipated that this will be approximately 9 months.

We are looking for someone with commitment and enthusiasm to join our expert welfare rights and debt advice team to provide a comprehensive Welfare Rights service for people with mental health conditions. You will provide direct advice and casework, as well as consultative support and training to key professional staff. You will offer a flexible service and be willing to carry out home visits and work in mental health settings.

You should have

• at least two years recent experience and
• expertise in benefits work.

You must have

• experience of appeal tribunal representation.
• a good understanding of recent and future changes to the social security system and how they impact on people with mental health issues.
• a good appreciation of mental health issues and be committed to the promotion of anti-poverty work.

Application forms from:  www.yourcounciljobs.co.uk.

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