Surrey Welfare Rights Unit

News

January 2010

We are delighted to have once again passed our Citizens Advice membership audit. Every three years external Citizens Advice auditors visit and apply the bureau membership scheme which each CAB must comply with in order to remain a member of the organisation. The audit does not only look at governance and quality issues but also assesses our social policy work which is one of our twin aims.

Training dates from January 2010 are now on the Training Pages. There is a new course State Pension Changes from 2010, which is essential for advisers who need to know about the Pension Act 2008 changes which are introduced this April. We are also running one FREE course, Benefits for Families, which is funded by the child poverty campaign, Money Matters for Every Child.

Money Matters for Every Child is now offering free workshops for parent groups. If your organisation runs any parent groups, or if you are organising a one-off event for parents then you may wish to consider booking one of these workshops. There is a choice of two Managing Money Better (Financial Capability) and Benefit Entitlement for Families (Income Maximisation). We have a whole team of advisers who are trained to run these workshops which last about an hour in length. Please contact the Unit on 01483 776713 if you want to find out more. We may also be able to run either of the workshops for staff who need to have a very basic outline understanding of these two areas of advice.

August 2009

The Autumn training programme is now available. All course details can be found on our training pages. Fees remain static for the third year running. We look forward to seeing you.

Money Matters for Every Child is the child poverty campaign for Surrey that the Unit is coordinating. First steps are now underway with a short programme of information sessions for staff and volunteers who wish to find out more about the campaign and how to advise vulnerable families. As the campaign grows and extends its reach we will keep you informed of progress. Look out for information in Autumn when we launch a Freephone referral line for specialist confidential advice on income maximisation.

March 2009

We are delighted to let all of you know that Surrey County Council agreed to pay the Unit a special grant for 2009/10. This grant means that we are no longer facing the threat of closure for the coming year. We will be working hard to secure income beyond next March but would like to thank all of supporters who lobbied on our behalf and got the County Council to recognise how important it was to fund these services for vulnerable clients.

The new Spring/ Summer training programme is now available. Once again we have tried to meet new demands from advisers and changes in legislation. We have three new half day courses on offer: Help with Mortgage Costs, Made Redundant? and Recently Arrived in the UK.

April 2009 posters and pocket cards have now been sent out to subscribers. If you want to enjoy these resources then please consider subscribing to our services which now also include exclusive access to the Specialist Advice Line. Online subscription is available here.

January 2009

Our new training programme for January to April is now available for booking. We have kept the same fees as last year and have introduced a new tariff system based on gross annual income rather than numbers of paid staff. Due to the fully booked ESA courses during Autumn we are running a further course on 25 February 2009.

Apart from ESA there have been numerous changes announced throughout Autumn including changes to lone parents and details on further help with housing costs. If you would like to commission a 1/2 day in-house Update Course then please contact the Unit on 01483 776713.

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.

Last updated January 2010

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