Contents
Background  
Organisational Structure  
Client Referral Procedure  
Giving advice to Social Services Service users  
Giving advice to the public  
Community Legal Services involvement  
Developments  

The Welfare Rights Service is part of Nottingham City Council's Adult Services, Housing and Health (ASHH) department. We provide a comprehensive welfare benefits advice service targeted at some of the most vulnerable people known to the department through our direct advice provision and indirectly through our funding of voluntary sector advice services.

Our vision is to improve the quality of life of members of the more disadvantaged sections of society by providing a service free at the point of delivery, which is confidential, impartial, and professional.

The Welfare Rights team makes a cross cutting contribution to a range of departmental and corporate objectives:

• Providing advice, assistance and advocacy for clients, and support and training for social work teams maximises a service users income, awareness of rights, independence and choice;

By increasing income, the service reinforces the corporate goals of regenerating communities by reducing poverty and social exclusion, increasing equality of opportunity and improving health and well being.

Benefits Advice to Social Care Staff and their Service Users

The Players Court Welfare Rights Team has recently been reorganised in order to better meet the needs of all social care staff and service users from both ASHH and the Children's Services (CS) departments, in line with the 2001 Best Value Review. We now provide a single advice line for staff to call to consult on how to deal with the situation themselves or to refer the client to our service if the matter is more involved.

Benefit Advice to the General Public

North and West Advice Service (Bulwell Advice Centre)

• Sure Start
• Asian Communities

Community Legal Service involvement

• Greater Nottingham Community Legal Services Partnership
• Training Consortium
• Specialist Quality Mark

Background(...back to top)
Nottingham City Council has had a Welfare Rights Service since 1998 when the City Council took over responsibility for Social Services functions from Nottinghamshire County Council under Local Government Reorganisation. At this time the Welfare Rights Service provided more public advice, through various advice sessions around the city, and via a telephone advice line.

In 2000 a Best Value Review of the provision of welfare advice in the city started to look at how advice was provided both by the Welfare Rights Service and the independent advice centres. The Best Value Review was concluded in July 2001 and recommended that there should be a clear differentiation between the in-house Welfare Rights Service and the diverse grant-aid funded voluntary sector. The in-house service will provide a more targeted casework and second tier support service to social services cleints of specified social service teams.Since then, this has been widened to include all social care staff and users. The Voluntary based providers will deliver advice services to the general public some of whom may be known to social services. See the Best Value Review here.

Benefits Advice to City Council Service Users(...back to top)
The Welfare Rights Service provides a second tier support service to social care staff and service users i both ASHH and CS Departments. We provide the following services:

• Consultancy advice line for social work team staff on welfare benefit matters
• Training to enable social work team staff to advice and assist their clients with welfare benefit matters
• Casework service for more complex benefit matters, such as appeals
• The dissemination of information and production of publicity material to raise awareness of rights and entitlements

Home Care Team – Fairer Charging
In April 2003, the government has introduced a new standardised charging system for home care services nationally, called ‘’Fairer Charging’. It is now a requirement for a local authority to undertake a benefit check and to assist home care recipients with benefit claims. Welfare Rights Officers in the Players Court Team take referrals from the Financial Assessors, and visit each user at home. They provide welfare benefits training to the financial assessorts to ensure that they are able to identify service usres who require a welfare rights visit.

Since 2006 it has been agreed that the Pension Service will take all referrals of clients who are aged 60 and over for initial benefit checks. Those under 60, as well as some more complex cases, will still be referred to the Players ourt Welfare Rights Team.

Benefit Advice to the General Public(...back to top)
The Welfare Rights Service also provides direct advice to the public in the following ways:

North and West Advice Service (Bulwell Advice Centre)
Bulwell Advice Centre employs two full-time Welfare Rights Officers to provide advice, advocacy and representation to the local Bulwell community. This service is provided through an appointment system at the advice centre and by Home Visits to those who are housebound and live in the NG6 post code area.

Between April 2001 and March 2006 the advice centre is being funded by the Single Regeneration Budget 5 , to employ a further Welfare Rights Officer and Senior Welfare Rights Officer, to provide advice services to the communities of Aspley, Moorgreen, Denewood, Bulwell Hal and Snapewood. The service runs a mixture of regular advice surgeries in local community venues and targeted take-up work.

Advice sessions are available as follows:-

• Bulwell Advice Centre Monday 9.30 – 12.30; Tuesday 9.30 – 12.30; Wednesday 9.30 – 12.30; Thursday 9.30 - 12.30;
• Aspley Community and Training Centre Wednesday 10.00 – 1.00 (Second and fourth Wednesday of the month);
• Bells Lane Community Centre Tuesday 10.00 – 1.00 (First and third Tuesday of the month);
• Denewood - The Corner House, Strelley. Wednesday 10.00 – 1.00 (Third Wednesday of the month);
• Moorgreen Resource Centre Wednesday 10.00 – 1.00 (First Wednesday of the month);
• Snapewood Community Centre Tuesday 10.00 – 1.00 (Fourth Tuesday of the month);
• Bulwell Hall Housing office Tuesday 10.00 – 1.00 (Second Tuesday of the month).

For appointments for all North and West Service sessions (including Bulwell Advice Centre and outreach sessions) telephone 915 1500 between 9.00 – 5.00 Monday to Friday.   

Sure Start
Sure Start funding for a Welfare Rights Officer provides welfare rights advice based at the Sure Start (NW Nottingham) offices in Strelley, for families with children of 0-4 years. A drop-in advice session is available at the Sure Start offices at the Cornerhouse, Strelley Road every Monday 9.30 – 12.30. For more details please telephone 924 0330.

A Welfare Rights Officer will also be providing advice, based at the Sure Start Sneinton office. A drop in session will be available every Wednesday 9.30 - 12noon telephone 915 0335

West Area Project

Between December 2004 and March 2006 this advice centre is being funded by Neighbourhood Renewal Funds to employ a team to provide advice in Aspley and Bilborough. This is known as the West Area Project.

Advice sessions are available as follows:-

• Bilborough Community Centre Tuesday 9.30 – 12.30;
• Broxtowe Family Centre Tuesday 10.00 – 1.00;
• Broxtowe Family Centre Wednesday 9.30 - 12.30;
• Beechdale Surgery Thursday 9.30 - 12.30;
• Bells Lane Community Centre Thursday 10.00 - 100 (fortnightly);
• Aspley Community and Training Centre Friday 10.00 - 1.00 (fortnightly);
• Wollaton Vale Community Centre Friday 9.30 - 12.30.

For appointments for all West Area Project  sessions telephone 915 0208 between 9.00 – 5.00 Monday to Friday.   

Asian Communities
Asian exempted Welfare Rights Officers provide advice sessions, casework and targeted take-up work with a particular focus on services to Asian communities. Referrals are taken flexibly and efforts are made to ensure Adult Services service users from these communities are a high proportion of referrals (sessions at community centres that provide day care on behalf of Adult Services, referrals from social service teams, etc).

There are currently public advice sessions for these communities as follows: -

• Asian Women's Project (Noel Street) Tuesday 10.30 - 12.30 Phone 9783945 for appointment;
• Bobbermills Community Centre Tuesday 1.00 - 4.00 Phone 8415806 for appointment;
• Indian Community Centre Wednesdays 10.00 – 1.00 Phone 9785985 for appointment;
• Lenton Community Centre Fridays 9.30 to 12.30 Phone 9412422 for appointment;
• Asian Women's Project (Noel Street) Friday Phone 9783945 for appointment.

In addition take up campaigns focus on specific benefit issues relating to the Asian community, plus targeting specific community organisations for benefit checks.   

Community Legal Service involvement(...back to top)

Greater Nottingham Community Legal Services Partnership

The Greater Nottingham Community Legal Services Partnership was set up in April 2000 in response to the Access to Justice reforms, and is one of over 200 local partnerships established to help improve the quality and accessibility of legal advice and information services for local residents. GNCLSP brings together funders, providers and consumer organisations to help plan services in a more joined up way. There are in the region of 170 GN CLS organisations providing a range of advice and information services in all areas of welfare law – family, housing, debt, employment, immigration, consumer, welfare rights, education, mental health, community care, actions against the police. GNCLSP is managed by a Steering Group which consists of representatives from the Legal Services Commission (formerly Legal Aid Board), each of the Local Authorities comprising Greater Nottingham, Age Concern, and elected representatives of the network of CLS service providers including Nottingham Law Centre and Nottingham & District CAB. All of the CLS organisations have or are working towards attainment of a national quality assurance standard – the CLS Quality Mark.

Nottingham City Council Welfare Rights Service plays a key role in the GNCLSP, having representatives on the Steering Group, the Training Consortium, and the Advice Providers Group

Training ConsortiumThe Training Consortium was established in August 2002 from various Providers from within Greater Nottingham CLSP. It is now been expanded to include the North Notts CLSP, therefore providing a Nottinghamshire Training Consortium.

It was established to meet the needs of CLSP Providers in the region to increase the knowledge of existing Providers through training, with the additional aim of building advice capacity by encouraging the throughput of advice volunteers.

In the short term the Consortium has established a programme of training accessible to providers in the region. A small sum of money was made available to start this process, and to fund the training administration. The training programme should be self funding by the small fees levied for course delegates.

The Training Consortium was successful in accessing European Social Fund money to deliver a Basic Advice Work Skills training course for volunteers. Four courses have been delivered between February 2005 and October 2006.

Quality Mark
The Quality Mark is a quality standard for information, advice and specialist legal services, corresponding to different levels and types of provision. The Quality Mark is designed to ensure a service is well run, and has quality controls to monitor the quality of information, advice and other help provided.

The Welfare Rights Service was awarded the Community Legal Services Specialist Help Quality Mark in May 2002. This is because the Service provides a full range of legal services, including representation and advocacy.   

Developments(...back to top)
At the moment the focus of the Welfare Rights Service is to provide a quality advice service to the clients we represent, and to maximise the incomes they are entitled to. Our longer term aim is develop the Service and to increase our capacity. This should include:-

1. Contribute to the shaping of future advice provision in the city;
2. Increase capacity of advice provision in the city;
3. Secure additional funding for existing short term projects and seek new funding for projects to increase the scope of advice provision;
4. Expand social work welfare rights support to wider areas of the Social Services Department, including Children's and Families;
5. Improve the provision of information and publications on welfare benefits throughout city access points, e.g. libraries;
6. Commence take-up campaigns as appropriate, for example Pensions Credit in areas of high pensioner population.  

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