Specialist Welfare Benefits Advice Line

This is to remind everyone about the CLA Specialist Welfare Benefits Advice Line, aimed at organisations that find they are being overwhelmed with appeal issues. Particularly as the welfare benefits service will be coming to an end on 31 March 2013.

Please note: That this is a specialist welfare benefits telephone advice service only, so it cannot deal with any face-to-face form completion.

This service has full access to Language Line, so any clients who do not have English as a first language or who cannot speak English at all will be able to access this service. It is a free service for people on low incomes or in receipt of benefits.

Community Legal Advice Line

Community Legal Advice (CLA) is a free and confidential advice service in England and Wales paid for by legal aid.

If you are living on a low income or benefits, you may be eligible for free specialist advice from legal advisers on issues including:

• Benefits and Tax Credits
• Debt
• Education
• Housing
• Employment
• Family problems

The advice is independent and confidential. Community Legal Advice will ask you questions about your problem and find out what help you need. You will be asked a number of questions about your finances to see if you are eligible for legal aid. Community Legal Advice has a free translation service available in 170 languages.

Contact Information:

Helpline: 0845 345 4 345

Opening hours:

• Monday to Friday: 9.00am to 8.00pm
• Saturday: 9.00am to 12.30pm

Minicom: 0845 609 6677

By Text: Text ‘legalaid’ and your name to 80010. The cost of your text will be at the standard rate for your operator.

Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Please note - this email address is for feedback and complaints only

It is the latter Tony and you are of course quite correct that some people, potentially home owners will not be eligible.

However the plus points are that many people can access this help and I am sure that appeal advice/preperation is a severley diminishing resource for many organisations.

The ability to access language line and also pay for medical reports are other plus points.

Dominic

Will we have telephone representation at tribunals then?

I have just finished a GPC LTAHAW appeal that has taken 2 years, 3 appeal hearings in front of 3 different judges (all found in the appellants favour) and client has just received £5.3k in GPC….

This client was first advised by the CLA telephone team (under legal aid - have copy of the CW1 form) and they advised her ‘no sufficient merit, no reasonable prospect of success’ and closed her case. The CLA telephone team undertake an eligibility check on the phone, send out a CW1 for signature and ask the clients to send the evidence of income to them, all the specialist LSC advice is done over the phone, with advice confirmed in writing.

I believe that it was clarified in the first paragraph that it is a telephone only service Chaos!

Although advice is confirmed in writing, submissions, medical evidence etc is a vital resource for lots of clients and organisations that have suffered significant cuts and are facing increased demand. 

The point is not everyone has the time to undertake a two year case with 3 different appeal hearings but everyone is definately being overwhelmed by all sorts of appeal cases.

Identifying one case where the client did not receive the support he/she obviously needed is neither here nor there, it is not representative of the service as a whole.

Its a resource tool, use it or dont use it, no point in moaning about an isolated case (although i am sure others could well be cited.)

dominic3 - 25 October 2012 01:23 PM

I believe that it was clarified in the first paragraph that it is a telephone only service Chaos!

I was merely replying to Tony’s question ... “or is the check for the purpose of referring to a contracted organisation - of which there will be none (or very few) in a few months?”

I don’t want to get into an argument and I was not attempting to criticise the CLA as a whole but when they are marketed as ‘specialist legal advice’ then they should provide a specialist legal advice service not close a case because it has hit a brick wall and DWP delays.

I only mentioned one case, but this is only one of several cases that I am aware of…. and I was not ‘moaning’ just drawing attention to the fact that a telephone only advice service has its difficulties that can negatively affect clients.

And just for the record I work under a legal aid contract so I am not anti-LSC and I repped the case I mentioned in my spare time because the client was going to give up.

Apologies Chaos

I was not trying to be argumentative as i fully agree your points particularly with your case.

I suppose in a world of ever diminishing resource I think anything still available is worth exploring.

Once again apologies if I came across a tad strong as this was not my intention.

Dominic

Apologies accepted (and a return apology too!).
I just get very concerned that the whole advice world will end up administered by phone and email and whilst this is brialliant for some, it is not as effective as face-to-face.

My colleague has suggested I should take your posting as a hint to work less (she may have a point) and refer more :-)

I know nothing of this service but in the absence of evidence to the contrary I assume it does a decent job.  However, there are dangers in trying to decide whether a case has merits by telephone interview only.

Of course, there will be cases where the facts are so clear cut that this can be done.  For example, I once saw someone who had appealed a Carers Allowance decision.  He’d been awarded it so I said what have you appealed?  He replied “the basic amount”.  No merit in the case at all, of course.  Now anyone could have told him that over the phone.

Mostly though, cases will not be that black and white.  The adviser will often not be party to all the evidence.  It takes skilled, forensic questioning to get to the bottom of cases.  And, perhaps most important, it also takes skill and experience to test an appellant’s credibility and truthfulness and that can only be done face to face.  Mental health clients in particular have to be observed as their demeanour gives a mountain of information.

I would hope and trust that the above service is aware of this and has these safeguards built into its processes and as an advice provision I wish it every success.  However, I would also be concerned if it was part of a trend whereby telephone advice gradually displaced face to face advice.  We have already seen how the ‘telephone only’ model adopted by the DWP has turned into an ongoing fiasco.

And, for the record, I’ve also done legal aid work in the past so I’m not anti-LSC either.