Surrey Welfare Rights Unit

News

April 2008

This Autumn there are significant changes to incapacity benefits which will raise training and resource issues for all advice organisations. If you would like to commission either a 1/2 day or full day in-house training course on these reforms then please contact us on the office line 01483 776713.

We have just set the dates for our Autumn training programme and once again we are developing courses to reflect changes in legislation, administration and adviser needs. We hope you find these new courses beneficial.

Benefits for Carers
Benefits for Lone Parents
Employment and Support Allowance
Tax Credit Problems

See our training page for further details.

The Unit provided evidence on reducing child poverty to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee last Autumn. The Committee has now published its findings in "Best start in life? Alleviating deprivation, improving social mobility, and eradicating child poverty" Read the report online.

We have just sent out April 2008 benefit rate posters and pocket rate cards to subscribers. If you wish to receive welfare rights resources for your organisation you can subscribe online here.

January 2008

We have set our training programme dates up until July 2008. We are running three new courses:

Introduction to Local Housing Allowance
Benefits for Terminally Ill
Introduction to incapacity for work reform

Check out our training pages and book online.

We recently completed an advice quality audit for welfare benefits at a local voluntary organisation. The organisation found the audit very useful and the findings will feed into their development plan and review of the service. The Unit holds the Legal Services Commission Specialist Support Quality Mark. If you think your organisation could benefit from our audit services then please contact us.

We are now accepting new subscriptions for 2008. If you wish to receive benefit rates posters, pocket cards, factsheets, newsletters, reduced training fees and more then you can find out how here. If you currently are a subscriber we will contact you directly about this year's renewal.

July 2007

We have now completed our move to our new offices with the generous support of Woking Borough Council. Our new contact details can be found here.

Our training programmes dates and venues are now posted on our Training pages.

If you are still waiting for new 2007/08 posters and pocket cards it could be that your organisation has not yet subscribed for 2007. You can find information here on the SWRU subscription package. and you can subscribe online here.

March 2007

View our Annual Review for 2005/06 here

Our Spring / Summer training programme is now set. We have a new "Recent Changes" course for experienced advisers and our Introduction to Welfare Benefits course is now a 2-day course. Many thanks to delegates who recently attended our courses and feedback helpful comments.

If you missed the announcement on our homepage, we are introducing a small subscription cost to our users. Find out about the benefits of becoming a subscriber here. You can subscribe online here.

Social Fund contacts have changed once again from this month. All South East claimants now use the Milton Keynes delivery centre. Details are on our Info page.

November 2006

We hope by now you are getting used to our new advice line hours and interim service. With the generous support of many advice and admin volunteer hours the disruption to you and your clients is hopefully minimal. Although it is always unwelcome to have to increase charges to other charities, we have kept our training fees low by comparison to other providers. We have also extended bookings to our neighbouring Counties so if you have branches or teams elsewhere in the South East, please feel free to pass on our training details or refer them to this website.

Surrey has now completed its move to Jobcentre Plus offices. The last Social Security Office in Redhill has closed to the public and the new Jobcentre Plus is now running from the previous Jobcentre offices. New claims are now made through the call centre system unless it is inappropriate for a client to claim by phone in which case you can ask for a claim form to be sent out. Benefits covered by Jobcentre Plus call centres include Income Support, Incapacity Benefit, Jobseekers Allowance, Industrial Injuries, Bereavement Benefit, Carers Allowance and Maternity Allowance. See our Info page for more details.

We have added several new reports to our information resources, including the recent Welfare Reform Bill and new information from HMRC regarding Tax Credits overpayment recovery. The files are all pdf documents which can be downloaded. View them here.

July 2006

The Unit training programme is now set from September. We are offering 13 different courses. Go to our training page for more details.

We have just been sent an urgent Housing Benefit/ Council Tax Benefit circular regarding Lebanese evacuations. For those arriving in the UK the Habitual Residence Test has been removed for HB/CTB purposes. Read the circular here.

Towards the end of last year the Unit gave evidence to the National Audit Office on how to tackle pensioner poverty. Read the findings of their extensive investigation here.

The National Audit Office report follows another recent report into pensioner poverty. Age Concern England's important report "Just above the breadline" can be read here.

We were invited by RNIB to provide a news item for their talking newspaper. The topic discussed was the new Welfare Reform bill and the changes to incapacity benefit in 2008.

June 2006

We have been notified by the Jobcentre Plus District Manager that in addition to the Hastings processing centre there will be a second centre in Worthing by 2008. Both centres will be responsible for Incapacity Benefit, Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance claims for Surrey and Sussex.

Since September 2005 we have been hosting Age Concern England information packs on our website. At the end of March when we reported back how many had been downloaded from our site, Age Concern were very impressed. They have provided us with updated copies for April 2006 onwards. Click here to view them.

March 2006

The Unit was asked to guest on BBC Radio 4 Moneybox Programme. Maria Zealey answered questions on benefit entitlement during a special employment rights edition of the programme.

Clients in receipt of certain benefits can get help with fuel bills if they are British Gas customers. Click here for more information.

Last updated April 2008

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