Agenda item 3 is feedback on our citizens advice bureaux visits. At our meeting on 10 March, we agreed that members would undertake visits to citizens advice bureaux either in their local area or in areas suggested by Citizens Advice Scotland. The purpose of the visits was to learn about the work of CABx and what their clients present with, by listening to their experiences and sitting in on welfare benefit advice sessions. Each member visited a CAB during May and June, and the visits ranged from the CAB in Easterhouse to the CAB in Lewis and Harris. Now that all the visits have been completed, I will give members the opportunity to comment on their own visit, if they think that there is something that they can bring to the discussion.
Thank you, convener. First, I must thank the folks in Stornoway, who were very accommodating.
One of the things that really struck me during my visit was how meticulous the CAB staff had to be in dealing with folks and helping them fill out forms. As we have heard and seen before, some people are simply unwilling to tell the true story and always want to present themselves at their best. For example, when a woman was asked if she was able to cook, she answered, “Yes, I’ve no difficulty with cooking.” The CAB staff member then teased that out a little bit more and was told, “Yes, I can cook, but I have to sit down when I’m cooking. I also feel nauseous when I’m cooking.”
All of that information was dragged out over a period of time. The end scenario was that the lady could cook but only with a huge amount of difficulty and after the process was done she often could not eat because of what she had gone through. The forms themselves are extremely easy, but they do not tease out such things, which are absolutely vital in making sure that any claim is absolutely right. Hats off to the folk at the CAB who managed to tease out a whole lot more than would have been got from straight yes or no answers to questions.
Another issue that came to light during my visit to Stornoway was difficulties with appeals or tribunals that are held off-island. Folk sometimes have great difficulty in travelling to Inverness, particularly if they have specific disabilities that mean that they cannot be jolted. In such cases, travelling across on the ferry can be difficult in normal circumstances. We need to have a real look-see to determine whether those difficulties are arising only in the Western Isles or whether they have arisen in Orkney and Shetland, too. Because of travel difficulties, some folk, particularly those with a disability, are missing out on a service that should be there for everyone. Perhaps we should write not only to the other CABx on the Western Isles but to all those in Orkney and Shetland to see how often such difficulties arise.
11:15
That is a good point—we should try to identify that. Does anyone else want to comment?
I attended the citizens advice service in Dumfries, which covers the whole of Dumfries and Galloway. Like Kevin Stewart, I want to pay tribute to the staff, who were extremely accommodating and very impressive in the two interviews that I sat in on.
Some of the points that Kevin Stewart has already made reflect my own experiences. I sat in on an interview with a person with a severe mental illness and physical disabilities who was being transferred from DLA to PIP. The adviser was helping her with a form, which it was clear the woman would have been completely unable to fill in herself. Indeed, the woman was there only because she had known the benefits adviser in the past. Because of her mental illness, she did not go out and she was frightened of people whom she did not know, and it was a stroke of luck for her that she knew someone who worked in the citizens advice service.
As Kevin Stewart has said, the general culture is to encourage people with disabilities or illnesses to be independent and take pride in what they can do—and quite rightly so. However, as far as these forms are concerned, people could be doing themselves a disservice if they say that they can complete them. For the lady in question, travelling was a problem; because of her agoraphobia, she could not go out on her own, although she was physically able to walk to a car. The extent and severity of her mental health illness meant that she had to be coaxed to do things like washing, cooking and eating.
Kevin Stewart has raised this point, too, but something else that concerned me was that the woman was told that unless she got a letter from her general practitioner, asking for her to be treated as a special case so that she could have an interview nearer home—or perhaps no interview at all—she would be at the mercy of having to travel quite a distance for an interview. According to the citizens advice bureau, no allowance would be made for long travel distances, which meant that the appointment could be at 9 am in Carlisle. There was no way that this particular lady could have made that journey. Although the interviewer talked her through the process and gave her a standard letter for her doctor, the lady had to personalise it and get it to the doctor and then the doctor had to send it off, and I was concerned that, given the extent of her illness, that might not happen. She certainly would not have been able to fill in the form by herself. In short, I want to highlight the fact that the forms are just too complex and do not make allowances for people’s circumstances as well as the issue about travelling to interviews.
The other interview I sat in on was completely different. An elderly lady did not know what benefits she was entitled to, and when she sat down with the adviser, it became clear that she had not been claiming hundreds of pounds. She had recently developed another illness and had just dropped in while passing to see whether she was entitled to something. As the adviser went through her circumstances, it became apparent that for years she had not been getting what she was entitled to.
That made me realise the importance of services such as citizens advice bureaux. Unfortunately, in Dumfries and Galloway, a large part of the service’s funding has been cut, and it has lost some of its advisers, which is a really bad thing to happen at this time. The case of that elderly lady really brought home the cabinet secretary’s point about the co-location of services; she was really struggling, and if she had received that advice earlier, she would have been in a much better position.
I know Hamilton Citizens Advice Bureau well; I have worked closely with it, and it is sometimes a great support to me in my office. I went along to its drop-in session. The staff did not know what was going to come through the door—and, in fact, lots of different things came through.
One untypical case hinged on an issue that we have all identified and which was certainly present in a number of cases that day: inaccurate information from agencies, whether that be the DWP or other agencies on its behalf. The case concerned a woman who was an EU national. She and her husband worked in low-paid jobs; however, he had had an accident at work and was unable to work, and she was claiming tax credits. She knew from the calculation that she had been given too much, and she needed help to sort it out because she could not see herself in debt to the Government. I saw how the adviser handled that. He went through the calculations and confirmed them with her. There was no huge language barrier—the woman’s English was very good—but it became apparent to me that in the way in which he was describing the situation and using language, the adviser was aware of not using expressions such as “getting on like a house on fire” and so on, which helped the woman’s understanding.
What really hit home to me was the fact that this woman, who works hard in a low-paid job and is looking after her husband, had been given the wrong information, had realised that straight away and wanted to remedy the situation. That is the opposite of what we sometimes see, and it is the opposite of what some of the right-wing media claim that EU nationals do when they come to this country.
The adviser’s professionalism in seeking that information, reassuring the woman and helping to get the problem sorted led to a number of phone calls, but because it was a Friday, there was nobody to answer them. The adviser took the matter as far as he could, and the lady was given an appointment to come back the next week to sort everything out. That was an unusual and untypical case, but the typical element to all the cases that I saw that afternoon was that people had been given inaccurate information that had led to decisions that caused problems and had consequences.
I visited Perth Citizens Advice Bureau on 5 June—having driven through monsoon conditions, I was going to get my tuppenceworth. I felt that the visit was interesting and that a report was justified. I thank the three people I met: the manager, Sandy Watts; the deputy manager, Christine McGuire; and one of their professional advisers, Andrew Scobie. They gave me good briefing notes, which I shall, with your permission, convener, pass around the committee.
I was not able to meet any interviewees—I do not think there were any when I arrived, although one or two appeared during the two hours that I spent at the bureau. I think people were reticent about having an outsider present while they were being interviewed, so I was not able to sit in on an interview.
The first subject that emerged in our discussions was geography—akin to what Kevin Stewart spoke about. You will see from the briefing that Perth CAB covers a vast area that is diverse in character; there are remote rural communities and there are more densely populated areas. For example, DWP has a presence in Perth and a smaller presence in Blairgowrie. They cover a pretty vast area, and access for claimants can be an issue. In addition, PIP assessments take place in Dundee, but the employment and support allowance assessments take place in Perth. Again, geography is relevant to that.
One interesting feature to emerge was that Perth CAB perceives the DWP as now having a reduced advisory role and being more focused on supporting people back to work. Although that is commendable in its own right, a question has to be asked: where are claimants to get advice? As others have indicated and as the cabinet secretary said this morning, the referral points—I was given a list of whom people should contact and a list of phone numbers—are simply not practical or affordable for many claimants.
The other issue to emerge was that, because of the perception that the DWP is performing a reduced advisory role, the CAB is now getting a much heavier case load in terms of giving advice. Not only is there a greater volume of cases, but the issues and the nature of the advice are much more complex. The deputy manager, Christine McGuire, said something that is certainly worth repeating: she said that the bureaux were previously the icing on the cake, but they are now the cake. I thought that that was a telling observation about how the role of CAB is changing.
That led to a discussion on the claimant commitment. Perth Citizens Advice Bureau feels that that should be a partnership agreement between DWP and the claimant that explicitly spells out the obligations and responsibilities of DWP and of the claimant. It should include the consequences of breaches so that there is a far better understanding of when and how sanctions might be applied and what that will mean.
In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm how important provision of advice and guidance is. Perth CAB has produced its own very impressive booklet, called “In Crisis?—A Survival Guide”. I have a copy here, if anyone wants to see it.
It was a very helpful meeting. A number of issues emerged in terms of both detail and general strands. I hope that the briefing note, plus what I have just said, will help to inform the committee.
I visited the Irvine CAB office. It is just across the road from my office, so we communicate regularly. I thank the staff there for showing me around on the day and for the information that they gave me. In particular, I thank the operations manager, Alan Whyte.
There was a queue of people waiting to be seen when I went in, but there were quite a lot of volunteers as well. There are four staff, and in total there are four different offices, including an office in Arran, to take in the geographic spread. There are also outreach offices and home visits can be done, if required. Irvine CAB feels that it provides a good service. It has a triage system for people who walk in; someone interviews them to find out what exactly their issue is and directs them to the most appropriate help or assistant on the day.
The number of appeals that the office deals with has increased substantially; in the past two months alone they have seen nearly half the number of people that they saw last year. They expect a significant increase this year in the number of appeals related to the PIP.
It is interesting, on the employment side of things, that the number of appeals against jobseekers allowance sanctions fell; there were 102 in 2013-14, and 49 in 2014-15. I am going to do further research into why that is the case, because the CAB is concerned that people do not know that they can appeal against sanctions. That might tie in with what Annabel Goldie said about less advice being given by DWP offices. I will have my office look into that.
11:30The situation in Irvine CAB is very similar to what we have heard already. People are really struggling with the changes and with keeping up with the reforms—just with knowing what they can do and the appeals that are available to them.
As I said, I sat in on an interview. It was not related to welfare; a couple of women were facing redundancy but did not know exactly when it was going to happen. The volunteer was very thorough and it was clear that he did not want to give out information that might be wrong; he was going to check out the information before he spoke to them again.
The visit was very worth while. The volunteers do a fantastic job. I understand that the CAB has had further funding from North Ayrshire Council, because it is doing more money advice work now.
Before I came into the meeting I received an email telling me that Perth CAB has done four pieces of research in conjunction with Stirling CAB. I will forward it to the clerk so that it can be made available to members. I did not have time to look at it before coming to the meeting.
I reiterate my thanks to Stirling District Citizens Advice Bureau for my visit for a morning at a drop-in session, as Christina McKelvie’s visit was. They did not have anyone lined up to see me, but I sat in on two interviews.
One of the interviews was not welfare related, but it was UK Government related—it was on a tax issue. Again, the scenario was that the person was having to phone multiple lines, and was being put on hold rather than being put through to someone. It was very frustrating both for the CAB adviser and the person who had the problem. Eventually, they resorted to putting everything in writing because they could not get any response from the telephone helplines.
I am grateful to the client who agreed to allow me to sit in on the other interview. He was a very ill man, with significant medical problems and pain. It had been a real effort for him to come in to the CAB and sit down. He and the adviser were working through a PIP application, which took more than an hour.
The client had dyslexia and was confused by the form. He was also confused about why he needed the form, because he had a medical condition that was obviously not going to get any better and he had clearly been through a similar process before. It was quite distressing.
All the way through the interview the adviser kept telling the client not to worry if the application failed, because the CAB would help with an appeal if it was needed. I asked the adviser afterwards why she had kept talking about an appeal, and she said that their impression is that almost every application is being rejected right away. Faults are being found that led to applicants having to appeal. It seems to the office to be totally unnecessary—there is total overadministration in the system—that they are having to appeal decisions on so many of the applications that they have supported people with, and which they felt were perfectly adequate for the problems that were coming through their door.
We had a bit of a discussion—which may not be relevant here—about linkage with other agencies and how the CAB is working with the council. As with the other CABx, we discussed some of the financial pressures on the office’s being able to continue to offer the current service. It was a very informative visit, and I got a fantastic tour of the facilities.
I was talked through all the leaflets that they currently hand out to people, and some of the special works were mentioned—for example, the co-working with Perth CAB. That was very interesting for me, because I am not from a particularly rural area. When I was a councillor in North Lanarkshire, we had only one CAB to deal with. Stirling CAB covers rural areas, which puts pressures on its budget when it comes to its ability to do home visits and its capacity for supporting people who do not have ready access to public transport to come into Stirling for drop-in sessions.
My experience was very similar to everyone else’s.
I visited Easterhouse Citizens Advice Bureau. Although, like Christina McKelvie, I am familiar with the CABx in Hamilton, Bellshill and Motherwell, I was struck, when speaking to the management, by the scale and volume of cases that the Easterhouse CAB has to deal with in comparison with the CABx in my area. Although I am aware of the increasing volume of cases in my area, to see the figures that the staff in Easterhouse were dealing with was quite an eye opener.
I sat in on the process of completing a PIP form. I was struck that the person who was looking for help was very articulate and knowledgeable about his condition, which he had lived with for a long time since he had an accident at work about 20 years ago. He was very familiar with all his circumstances, with the medication and treatments and with everything else that he required to complete the form.
I was, however, struck by the marked difference between the initial information that the person was able to give and the final information that the citizens advice worker was able to extract. Had the person completed the form himself, he would have provided only very basic information. By the time the member of CAB staff had looked into the complexity of his illness, the circumstances around his home life and various other things that had had an impact, it became clear that it was a much more detailed and complex case than it had looked to be at the outset. The amount of information that will go to the assessors is markedly more than the basic information that he came in with at the outset. The value of that member of staff sitting for two hours and taking that individual through the process might be the difference between his obtaining and not obtaining the support that he needs. It was crucial.
I spoke to all the staff—the management and the volunteers—and they are all aware of how much pressure they are under and how much has changed. It is remarkable how undaunted they are. The more people have been impacted by the changes, the more determined to help they have become. It is a great credit to them that they have not tried to find ways to take short cuts or to take the pressure off themselves, but have just accepted what has come towards them and found ways to deal with that in order to help as many people as possible. I thank them for giving me the opportunity to learn from them and to see just how dedicated they are to the tasks that face them.
It sounds as though everyone has come away with a very positive feeling. We already had that about CABx and the work that Citizens Advice Scotland does in general, but to have had the opportunity to see it at first hand is something that we all appreciate.
One more point about the Stornoway situation struck me as Joan McAlpine was speaking. The CAB there has managed to develop a partnership with general practitioners so that letters and so on from GPs do not cost clients anything. According to the CAB there, the reaction from the GPs has been pretty good. Lessons could be learned from there and from other parts of the country. If that kind of partnership was taking place everywhere, it would probably reduce the impact on some clients by getting all the information right at the first attempt, instead of their having to go to appeal. Hats off to the CAB and the general practitioners on Lewis and Harris, who seem to be getting it spot on.
I will write to Citizens Advice Scotland and to the individual CABx on behalf of the committee to thank them for giving us their time and for supporting our work as they did. It was a useful exercise.
Before I bring the meeting to a close, I point out that our next meeting is on 16 June, when we expect to review the first draft of our committee report on women and social security. We will also examine the work programme for the period after the summer recess.
Do we have the ad hoc visits in our diary?
We will have a quick chat in private about how that is working out. Thank you, everyone.
Meeting closed at 11:40.Previous
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