Advice Services (Nottingham)

Debate between Alex Norris and Gloria De Piero

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alex Norris]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know he feels strongly about this issue and I share his concern. In a diverse city such as ours, with the new and emerging communities that we have, there is a gap and it is not clear what is meant to fill it.

As I said, local government has a critical role to play in the provision of advice services. Nottingham City Council has played an admirable role, again in incredibly difficult circumstances, when it comes to budgets. With significant cuts and the extraordinary pressures that an ageing and growing population can put on council budgets, it might have been tempted to deprioritise this area. After all, it is not a universal service and—dare I say—not a vote winner. However, the council has not done that.

I played a small role in this area in my previous life as a councillor: my commissioning committee commissioned the new advice set-up. I say that more as a declaration of interest than an attempt to take any credit, because I really cannot do so.

The city council has consolidated its contracting, brought organisations together in a consortium and commissioned six of them across the city—the law centre I mentioned is one, as are Bestwood Advice Centre and St Anns Advice Centre, which both work in my constituency—to provide support in the city. Other communities might benefit from that model, and Ministers might benefit from looking at it also.

Having high-quality support is of course very good for individuals in their time of need, but actually it is good for all of us in the community, because the financial impact is considerable. Over the first half of this financial year alone, the advice services have supported city residents to access more than £3.6 million in benefits to which they are entitled and to tackle more than £0.5 million in debt. They have dealt with nearly 3,000 inquiries, and more than 1,000 cases have been taken up directly. Of course, behind every pound and penny is a human being starting on the road to get out from under their burden. Their mental health is improved and hopefully their life is changed; and as I said, for us as local taxpayers, the work is extraordinarily good value.

Disability Direct Nottingham is a group I know well; it is based in Basford in my constituency. It is a little different from the other services that I have spoken about, in that it works with a community of identity. It was born out of a goal to make a difference for a specific group of people—people in Nottingham with disabilities. It is the only information and advice service that caters specifically for all manner of people with a disability in Nottingham, and it prides itself, rightly, on the considerable impact that it makes for disabled people, older people and carers residing in the city and beyond.

In preparation for the debate, we were in touch with Charlotte Throssel, who I have worked with for some time. She is the services manager and makes the bulk of the decisions in response to what is needed. We asked her to summarise what the staff and volunteers spend most of their time doing for the users. I do not have enough time now to talk about those things, because they are incredible; if it can be imagined, they are doing it. Suffice it to say that that organisation exists to help and will do so in any way it can, whether that means supporting its clients with legal proceedings, giving advice on welfare, assisting with forms or even helping in the garden, as I believe happens sometimes, too. The organisation gets more than 5,000 inquiries each year and has helped to secure almost £0.5 million in backdated benefits. Its success rate at appeals and tribunals—I find this staggering; perhaps I should not have been surprised, but I was—is 84%, so five out of every six times, it succeeds. I think that that says something about the system that it has come up with.

That is being done with funding from the Big Lottery Fund or through fundraising or donations; the council helps with premises. Disability Direct works really hard and does an outstanding job with six staff members—only two full time—and almost 70 volunteers. I can also say, from personal experience, that Charlotte puts on a mean barbecue.

That is a taste of the breadth of what is going on, whether services are working citywide, in local communities or with specific groups of people. There are other organisations, which we encountered and worked with in preparing for the debate: My Sight Notts, the Wellbeing Hub and Nottinghamshire Deaf Society. As I said, I am making a rod for my own back today, because doubtless I will have missed someone and I would not want them to think that they were not appreciated, because they really are. Nevertheless, in having these conversations about what is going on, I think that three clear challenges emerged and are worthy of our consideration.

First—this point is probably not revelatory—advice services cannot always meet the demand for their services. Of course that is because there is lots to do in a community such as mine, but one significant limiting factor, which I hope Ministers can consider, is the quality of information that comes out of public services, which can lead to people getting into a mess or confusion. Sometimes there is unclear information, distorted by inaccurate reporting in the media, and it leads to confusion and a great call on advice services.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. I pay tribute to the citizens advice bureaux, which do fantastic work across my constituency. Their work is set to become even more vital as universal credit is rolled out, particularly given that the Government’s helpline charges 55p a minute. Does my hon. Friend agree that as their role becomes even more important, they must be on a secure financial footing?

[Alex Norris]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; I agree completely. At the moment—I will turn to this shortly—there is a blizzard of funding that has to be pulled together, and each of those sources is under pressure, for various reasons. At a time when, as my hon. Friend says and as was said in this place earlier today, the Government are charging 55p a minute for people to get advice from those who run the service, clearly they are likely, especially when in financial distress, to reach out to others who do not do that. There is a struggle meeting the demand, because of a lack of information. Clearer advice, more consistency and easier access to information would reduce confusion, and reduce the front-door work they have to do to manage expectations and guide people where to go. That would free up more time, money and effort to work on the core cases.

Secondly, funding is a persistent challenge. Our advice sector in Nottingham is pinned together with council resources, EU money, lottery funds and donations of time and money. All of those deliver excellent value. There is a £10 return for each £1 spent regarding benefits that individuals are entitled to, and £3.50 for each £1 spent working on debt relief, but all of those are under pressure for various reasons. As we head into the Budget, Ministers should be mindful of the cumulative impact and ripple effect of their cuts, especially unseen cuts, such as those to local government, which then go through different commissioning committees and end up with changes that perhaps were not meant in that way.

Finally, I want to use my remaining time to talk about universal credit, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield raised. Our analysis indicates that by the end of this Parliament, if it runs a full term, there will be some 23,000 families receiving universal credit in Nottingham North. We know that experience from pilot communities such as Newcastle has shown that universal credit roll-out has led to considerable hardship, with 85% of council tenants on universal credit being in arrears. That has the unintended consequence of putting strain on the housing revenue account. That challenges local government budgets and actually reduces their ability to build new homes. It is a decreasing spiral. I hope Minsters will heed calls from Opposition parties, national charities and even their own Members, to delay this, while they at least work out the very real challenges in the system.

I just want to tell a story that I picked up from Citizens Advice about a woman called Claire. She was in great distress when she first met an adviser and it was very difficult for her to talk about her situation. She had left her home, because her now ex-partner had become violent and physically assaulted her. On top of that physical and emotional trauma, Claire now had to find a new home, apply for benefits and get herself on a new footing for her new life. She found a new home and applied for universal credit, but she waited over eight weeks for her first payment. She had been working a little bit in a local shop and was paid weekly, but she did not have any savings. She was unable to make rent payments properly for two months, leaving her in arrears, and she was also in arrears with her council tax. She had some credit card debt, which she was unable to service during this time. At the end of this two months of waiting, she was severely in debt and being threatened with eviction proceedings, as well as the emotional trauma she already had. During that two-month waiting period, she got by on food bank vouchers and tokens for electricity and gas, just to keep going. However, she now faced mounting debt, with no real way to tackle it. When her universal credit payment came through, she had hoped to get back on her feet and start to set herself up again—in line with what the Prime Minister said the system ought to be doing—and to make some formal arrangements to pay back her debt. However, the paperwork —no discussion with her—stated that 40% of her entitlement would be deducted to cover rent and council tax arrears. That meant that Claire had £30 a week to cover food, gas, electricity and other household essentials, leaving her in a perpetual cycle of borrowing to cover her essential needs, and the system has proven very inflexible as she tries to get herself back on to her feet. There are too many Claires and if we continue on this course at this pace, there will be many more.

I do not want to conclude my contribution on a negative note. I hope I have shown to colleagues the incredible range of advice services in our community, wonderful things done under the most difficult circumstances for those who really need it. I came to this place because I want to give my life to the service of others, and when I see that in my community too it really inspires and motivates me to work even harder. Those people represent the best of my city and most days their work goes unheralded and unseen, but not this day.