Advice Dorset Partnership E News 25: 30 March 2023

30/03/2023
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The Advice Dorset Partnership E news is published fortnightly on a Thursday, BUT if there is something urgent in-between we will send out a short supplementary edition.

As usual feel free to forward this email to colleagues and they can get in touch with us if they wish to go on the list. If you would like to send anything out via the bulletin, and for all other enquiries about the Advice Dorset Partnership, contact Caroline Buxton on her Citizens Advice Central Dorset email: mailto:caroline.buxton

Jobs

Faithworks Community Money Advice are recruiting for two CMA Debt Advisors, one in Blandford (10-15 hours/week) and one in Wimborne (10 hours/week), both linked to the local Food Bank, to provide people with budgeting support and debt advice. Salary – £12/hr, plus 6% employer contribution to pension. Closing date 28 April 2023.

For an informal chat about the roles, please call Dawn on 07469019625 or Nick Bold on 07743386908. More information on their website – here.

Information updates

COST OF LIVING

Cost of Living Payments from April 2023: New regulations in force from 17 April 2023 specify the qualifying day for entitlement to the first Cost of Living Payment in 2023 of £301 – the guidance is here – and in summary:

Universal Credit (UC) claimants must be entitled (or later found to be entitled) to a payment of at least 1p of UC in respect of an assessment period that ended between 26 January 2023 and 25 February 2023.
Claimants of Pension Credit, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance or Income Support must be entitled (or later found to be entitled) to a payment of at least 1p of these benefits in respect of any day from 26 January 2023 to 25 February 2023.
Claimants of tax credits must have received a payment in respect of any day from 26 January 2023 to 25 February 2023, or be later found to have been entitled to a payment for this period.

Energy Price Guarantee: The Chancellor has announced in the Budget that EPG support has been extended for an extra 3 months – from April to June. The EPG reduces the amount of energy households can be charged per unit of gas or electricity. The Chancellor has also said that it is taking action to remove the premium paid by households using prepayment meters. The change is expected to happen from 1 July, via updates to the Energy Price Guarantee.

PrePayment Meters: Ofgem Chief Executive James Brearley has advised MPs that the voluntary agreement made with energy suppliers to suspend prepayment meter (PPM) installations will continue beyond 31 March 2023. Mr Brearley also confirmed that ‘… our priority is making sure that this industry gets its act in order. Therefore, they will not be restarting forced installation of prepayment meters at the end of March, and will only do so when, and if, they can establish that they are acting in accordance with that new code of practice.’ See more on a Call for Evidence under consultations below.

Compare how much domestic appliances cost to use: This information is in Citizens Advice’s energy bills section, here, and has a tool to get a quick estimate of the cost of different appliances (whilst reminding people not to turn off essential….) There is also a section on getting help with the cost of energy efficiency, including information on grant schmes etc – here.

BENEFITS

DWP Bereavement Services: The DWP Bereavement Services number is 0800 151 2012 and should be used to report a death to the DWP and to enquire about, make or maintain a claim to:

Bereavement Benefit
Bereavement Support Payments
Funeral Expense Payments

Please note the previous number, 0800 731 0139 will no longer be in service after 31 March and callers will get an unobtainable call tone. More on Bereavement Support Payment here.

UC – Help to Claim service: This service, delivered nationally by Citizens Advice, will continue for a further year. Help to Claim advisers can help people with the early stages of their Universal Credit claim, and help can be provided on the phone, or online over chat. Read more about Help to Claim here.

Increase in work-related conditionality for UC claimants: Changes were announced inhe budget to work-related conditions for UC claimants. Most of these are likely to take place in the near future and will require little or no amendment to current legislation. The aim is to increase work coach intervention and work search requirements for a greater number of UC claimants, and ‘strengthen’ the way the sanctions regime is applied by automating part of the process. Specific changes:

increase the administrative earnings threshold to 18 hours at the national living wage for individual UC claimants and removing the threshold for couples. This will mean more working UC claimants and their partners will be subject to work-related conditionality
additional attention from work coaches for lead carers of children aged 1 or 2 to help prepare them for work and extra scrutiny for those responsible for children aged 3 to 12 to encourage them to increase their working hours
extend the Youth Offer to ensure all young unemployed people, including carers and young parents, receive access to Youth Hubs and Youth Employability Coaches
measures to encourage over 50s, who are not in paid work, to return to paid work. This will include creating over 50’s ‘returnerships’ and offering ‘Jobcentre MOTs’ to this group

Other benefit changes:

UC childcare costs to be paid up-front
extension of the Help to Save scheme for those on UC and working tax credit until April 2025
retention of the current £2500 UC surplus earnings threshold until March 2024
Extending, until November 2023, the operational measures introduced in May 2021 to reduce waiting times for new PIP claims
increasing UC transitional severe disability premium element rate by the September consumer prices index figure inline with the uprating of other UC elements

Redesigned PIP Annual Review form: The DWP has been working on a redesign of the PIP AR1L review form, and the accompanying letter (PIP.1043L) for some time. The form is issued for ‘planned reviews’, i.e. those instigated by the DWP. The redesigned form and letter will be issued to a random selection of PIP claimants who are due to receive their PIP review form between 30 March and end of April 2023. The redesigned AR1L goes into much more detail than the existing one, so more claimants may come to you to ask for help.

EMPLOYMENT

Employment claims: For dismissals occurring on or after 6 April 2023:

a week’s pay for the purpose of calculating some Employment Tribunal awards and statutory redundancy pay is increasing from £571 per week to £643 per week
the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal is increasing from £93,878 to £105,707

Free Childcare: The Government has announced more free childcare for eligible working families. Up to 30 hours entitlement will be extended in stages to children aged 9 months up to 3 years, in addition to existing provision for 3 and 4 year olds as follows:

April 2024 – working parents of 2 year-olds will be able to access 15 hours of free childcare per week
September 2024 – working parents of 9 month to 2 year-olds will be able to access 15 hours of free childcare per week
September 2025 – working parents of children aged 9 months up to 3 years will be able to access 30 free hours per week

Read more on these changes here, and information on the current childcare offer is here.

UTILITIES

Priority Services Register: The PRS can help people if they need extra help in a power cut, water outage or gas emergency. Adding them to the register means they can be given tailored support and information should they need it. A new website makes it easier to sign up – all that is required is a postcode to find the relevant register and the network operators that are supporting that area. You can also sign up for Wessex Water’s PSR here, and Bournemouth Water here.

OTHER

Passport Office strike: Passport Office workers who are members of the Public and Commercial Services Union are going on strike from 3 April to 5 May. The Home Office has said that the strike does not affect its guidance which is to allow up to 10 weeks to get a passport. Read more on BBC news.

Events

DWP Disability Services Advocacy Team sessions: The Team support with raising awareness of the different Disability Services benefits and grants. There are several online sessions in April covering Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for Children and Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB). Booking is via eventbrite – dates and details are on this flyer:

Monthly-Sessions-April-2023-External-Stakeholders

Ramadan 22 March – 22/23 April: A useful guide with information on Ramadan and sections for employers and line managers is published by the Muslim Council for Britain – here.

Consultations

Prepayment Meters – Call for Evidence: The Government has published figures showing that over 94,000 prepayment meters were installed under warrant in 2022. British Gas, Scottish Power and OVO Energy made up 70% of all forced installations. As previously reported (issue 24), Ofgem and Citizens Advice are launching a national evidence-call to ask energy customers to share their experiences of moving to a prepayment meter (PPM). From 29 March, clients can now also call a telephone line (0800 464 3374) to be part of the call for evidence that Ofgem and Citizens Advice are doing to hear from energy pay-as-you-go customers moving to prepayment meters. This phone line will be for clients who are unable to provide their experiences using the online form. It will be an evidence-gathering line and won’t provide advice. Clients calling who need advice will be directed to the consumer service. The deadline for clients to submit their experience via the form or phone line is Thursday 4 May 2023.

Barriers to accessing health and wellbeing services: Dorset NHS and Community Action Network have put together a short survey to help understand the barriers to accessing health and well-being services: there are lots of potential barriers that can get in the way of people accessing preventative health care and this lack of access disproportionally affects some more than others, which in turn exacerbate health inequalities for people in our community. If you or your organisation work with those needing health and well-being services then your thoughts and opinions are sought via a short survey here.

Research, reports, blogs

Citizens Advice – March Cost of living data: The March dashboards are here.

Rural homelessness: New research led by Kent University on behalf of a coalition of rural charities and housing associations has revealed that the countryside is battling a ‘hidden homelessness’ crisis driven by soaring housing costs and a gaping shortfall in local authority funding. Respondents reported that rural homelessness has increased, and that rough sleeping is experienced differently in rural areas compared to urban areas. Read more here.

IPPR – The Sanctions Surge: In The sanctions surge: Shining a light on the universal credit sanctions regime the Institute for Public Policy Research highlights the recent increase in sanction rates to a significantly higher level than the pre-pandemic level and raises concerns for two key reasons: as the cost of living rises faster than average wages or benefit rates, more people relying on social security are at risk of hardship and destitution if their payments are reduced, and they are unable to afford basic essentials as a result; and big policy changes ahead are likely to lead to more people being sanctioned across the UK. Read more here.

MIND – Scrapping Work Capability Assessments could lead to even more broken benefits system: The UK government has published the Health & Disability White Paper, which lays out planned reforms to the benefits system. As part of this, they have announced plans to scrap the Work Capability Assessment. Although the earliest this could be implemented is 2026, concerns are being raised, and MIND’s head of policy comments ‘“Scrapping the problematic Work Capability Assessment is a welcome step towards rectifying the DWP’s broken assessments system, but the UK government’s approach lacks the rounded, fully formed thinking that’s going to be needed to solve the many issues plaguing the benefits system……It is also very concerning that the White Paper suggests benefit awards will be based on the assessments currently used for PIP, once the WCA is phased out. We know from our research that PIP assessments are far short of where they need to be, and in many ways are worse than the WCA”. Read more here.

Banning letting properties to families with children: The Property Ombudsman (TPO) in England has decided that blanket bans on letting properties to families with children discriminate against women and are against their code of practice. TPO says that they will investigate any such cases referred to them where the agent is a member. TPO is a government-approved scheme to provide independent redress in relation to disputes between consumers, including private sector tenants, and property agents. Where a letting agent is not a TPO member, they can contact the Property Redress Scheme (PRS) to look at complaints. All letting agents must be registered with either TPO or the PRS.

Individual Voluntary Arrangements: Citizens Advice has been working with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on a mystery shopper investigation into the ‘murky market of debt solutions’ – specifically Individual Voluntary Agreements (IVAs). High fees, mis-selling – often by aggressive third parties, inappropriate and unaffordable IVA repayments, inadequate regulation…….. and more: this joint work has been featured with a special report on Channel 4 News which you can watch here. With the current cost of living financial pressures there are likely to be more people, many who are vulnerable, exploited in this way.

Bailiffs behaving badly: Still on the topic of debt, Citizens Advice research shows that over the last 18 months, 1 in 4 people (27%) have fallen into debt. This has seen over 2 million people being contacted by bailiffs during the cost-of-living crisis. But rather than help people get back on track, intimidating behaviour and huge fees charged by bailiffs have pushed many households further into debt and left some afraid to answer the door or even leave their homes. A third of people who have been contacted by bailiffs have experienced threatening or unfair behaviour which breaks the rules. With no statutory regulation to hold bailiff firms to account, people who are struggling to make ends meet have little to no protection when bailiffs come to their door. Read more here.

Red Cross report on Ukranian refugee’s experiences: This report, Fearing, fleeing, facing the future: how people displaced by the conflict in Ukraine are finding safety in the UK, reflects on the UK’s Ukraine Visa Schemes one year since the escalation of the conflict. People across the UK have demonstrated the power of kindness by opening their homes to people fleeing the conflict, and many continue to accommodate people successfully. However, there have been various shortcomings in the UK’s response, which need to be urgently addressed for the benefit of hosts and arrivals alike. This report is informed by the Red Cross’s our significant operational insight helping more than 60,000 people displaced from Ukraine arriving in the UK over the past 12 months as well as publicly available data. Read more here.

Funding news

Skills & Learning – Project and Partnership Fund: Skills & Learning works in partnership with voluntary, charitable and not-for-profit organisations throughout Dorset, supporting the work they undertake with groups in our communities. As well as opportunities for local people to re-engage with learning, our partners offer other opportunities including: Apprenticeships, Traineeships (16–24), Study Programmes (16–18) and Vocational Training from Level 1 to Level 5.

The Fund is open to bids from Third Sector and community organisations that are able to provide innovative learning opportunities for adults from priority groups and those from areas of deprivation as measured in the government deprivation indices. In order to be aware of – and apply for – opportunities you will need to be registered on the supplyingthesouthwest portal.

Leathersellers’ Foundation: Small one off grants (up to £5k) are available to support the work of registered charities in the UK. These could be for eg unexepcted expenses. To be eligibel for the Small Grants Programme organisations must be: