The Strategic Director of Health and Wellbeing will present a report (Document AD) which outlines the new approach to the delivery of welfare advice services across the District.

The report includes details of the new approach to Welfare Advice; the commissioning and procurement processes employed; who the successful bidders were and a description of the services to be delivered.

Recommended –

(1)  That the report be accepted and that it be noted that time is required for the new services to embed and commence their change priorities.

(2)  That services be encouraged to work closely with their ward members and to ensure that service access data which will be used by a wide range of stakeholders and referrers is kept up to date.

(Sarah Possingham/Julie Robinson-Royce – 01274 431319/434143)

The Strategic Director of Health and Wellbeing presented a report (Document AD) which outlined the new approach to the delivery of welfare advice services across the District.

The report included details of the new approach to Welfare Advice; the commissioning and procurement processes employed; who the successful bidders were and a description of the services to be delivered.

Members commented on a number of issues which included:

·         The working hours of advice centres needed looking at as well as the advice that was being offered and the lengthy queues in seeing an advice worker.

·         Advice centres needed to inform Members of the public that Councils did not own any housing stock and refer them to social housing such as inCommunities.

·         Was there anything in the contract specification that defined welfare? 

·         Would the centres cope with the increased demand when all the services were rolled out?

·         How were decisions made on locations where sessions had reduced such as Thorpe Edge and Fagley where there was high dependency, poor health and where people needed extra welfare advice; what was the consultation that had been undertaken?

·         Location of welfare advice centres needed looking at to ensure there was appropriate coverage in Bradford East.

·         What was the process for ensuring that quality debt advice was being provided? there was not enough information available to members of the public on the services that were being provided by advice centres.

·         Were the advices centres working with children’s centres?

·         Needed to look at creating an appointment system at advice centres; if a member of the public could not access a particular centre could they attend a centre out of area for advice?

·         Providers needed to work with Ward Councillors on the best place for siting the welfare advice centres.

·         Would be useful to see information on new users of the centres and previous users.

In response to Members comments it was reported that:

·         As part of the service specification there was a requirement to extend service access outside of routine working hours. This could be through the use of new media; internet and/or face to face.  There was also a need to improve service users’ experience, where there were simpler queries and requests dealing with these in a timely manner-getting it right first time.

·         Advice Centres were required to provide specialist welfare advice such as benefits and tax credits; all the Centres also had links with Cancer Support,  Age UK and other relevant agencies such as Girlington Centre was accredited to provide Immigration advice.

·         It was expected that all advice centres would be providing specialist advice relating to debt, immigration and housing as their staff were trained and accredited.

·         Providers were expected to work with the Council’s Revenues and Benefits Section; Universal Credits started last year for single people, by 2019 everyone would be accessing Universal Credit; advice centres would work across other Social Housing Landlords to ensure they were on board too.

·         Providers were open to hear and engage with people to ensure that services were delivered where needed; sessions at Ravenscliffe had reduced but outreach work was being delivered at Fagley Centre; there were two other outreaches in the area and provision was available; but if Members still had concerns they could contact providers direct to discuss.

·         To ensure staff delivering services were suitably qualified the service specification was clear on qualifications and the number of years of experience required.

·         Publicising the new advice centres had been low key until now; a soft launch was planned for June and publicity would be a theme for the next joint provider meetings to plan out communication more consistently.

·         The contract had been let on a transformational basis meaning that new providers had to ‘pick up’ what was already there; phase two was examining the services in more detail and improving service access and quality, phase 3 would mean that services were located in the right place and being offered in different ways and at different times; It was a contractual requirement that all services had sessions and access from the relevant children centre clusters in their areas.

·         It was important to remember that members of the public could access different centres at any time they needed to. Service providers may operate in different areas but should not restrict access on the basis of post codes.

·         The service provided by the centres would not cause duplication; case management processes were in place to avoid that.