Local authority Welfs

There is no shame in being an anorak!

In Wirral we are part of the Department of Adult Social Services. However, that of itself is of little practical significance as we offer our services to all sections of the Local Authority (as well as directly to the public).

It would be interesting to know the size of welfare rights units in other Local Authorities. We now have 3 advisers. This is down from 4.5 posts following a voluntary redundancy process in December 2010.

I used to be a LA welf until about 18 months ago. Most recently we were in Adult Social Care, but before that the team was in ‘Communities’ for a while. We were in Communities with Trading Standards, which does make some sense due to their consumer rights advice responsibilities.

Jane

I am the sole welfare benefits advisor at Peterborough City Council and I am in Customer Services - which is also where our face to face Revs and Bens officers are based.  Although interestingly, we have all just been outsourced this month to a private company (Serco)  ...

We are part of an integrated NHS care trust (prevously part of Devon County Council, then Torbay Unitary, now NHS). However, the adult social care funding is delegated from Torbay Council to the NHS care trust, although the council retains legal responsibility for adult social care. The welfare rights part of our service involves self (manager), 1 x general adviser, 1 x mental health outreach. However the work covers much more than welfare rights. although that plays a very large part. Also have posts covering carer information and web information sheets.

We are part of Health and Community Services (which was Adult Care Servics until recently but now includes Libraries and Health Promotion). Like others though, it is largely meaningless as we offer all our second-tier services (training, information, adviceline etc) to all Council Depts (as well as NHS, district councils and volorgs) and we get some project-specific funding from Childrens Services as well. A guide to how we work is attached.