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Keep the faith

shawn mach
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Great article from Alan Markey from NAWRA/Coventry Independent Advice Service:

At the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers (NAWRA) conference in Salford earlier this year, the Mayor of Salford referred to advisers as “national heroes who are doing all they can to protect people from the worst effects of poverty”.

Advisers, whatever category of law you work or specialise in, are at the forefront of the fight to achieve fair treatment and a measure of equality for vulnerable individuals and families in this country. You may all be so busy with your day jobs to realise this, but you are. And you should be very proud of this.

More: https://medium.com/@alanmarkey/keep-the-faith-6cc6fe942dfc

EJ
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Benefits advice line - Coventry City Council

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shawn mach - 29 July 2019 11:58 AM

Great article from Alan Markey from NAWRA/Coventry Independent Advice Service:

At the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers (NAWRA) conference in Salford earlier this year, the Mayor of Salford referred to advisers as “national heroes who are doing all they can to protect people from the worst effects of poverty”.

Advisers, whatever category of law you work or specialise in, are at the forefront of the fight to achieve fair treatment and a measure of equality for vulnerable individuals and families in this country. You may all be so busy with your day jobs to realise this, but you are. And you should be very proud of this.

More: https://medium.com/@alanmarkey/keep-the-faith-6cc6fe942dfc

Brilliantly written article - brilliant analysis - and memories that make you weep ......

Daphne
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Just finished reading it myself - really great article - and lots of memories as I did a social science degree and started in advice at much the same time…

Peter Turville
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Welfare rights worker - Oxford Community Work Agency

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Indeed a great article. What struck me was how neatly it illustrates the old cliche ‘the more things change the more they stay the same’.

I undertook penal servitude in the DHSS as a Supp Ben assessor (and CPSA branch chair) in the run up to the introduction of IS. In those days we had no IT (not even calculators). I recall the meetings with management where the plans for IS (and computerisation which eventually came to nought) were first mooted and how wonderful we were told it was going to be, through to the chaos of the transfer of private tenants rent from Supp Ben to HB etc. etc. Back in the day CPSA and other union members went on strike (remember the Birmingham benefit office shut downs?) over under staffing, workloads, heavy handed management etc. (sounds familiar?).

Then I did a social science degree! Initially I took an unpaid sabbatical to do a one year HE course. As I had been the person who did most of the Supp Ben student calcs in the office (we didn’t have many) I had to return to the office and help an ex-colleague to calculate my Supp Ben award - can’t see that happening under UC!

IT has been a wonderful thing - no longer having to file the Yellow Book and Blue Book legislation & guidance updates, order commissioners decisions etc (or manually update the CAB info system each month). But arguably it has also enabled each successive benefit reform to become more remote and unresponsive to the needs of individual claimants and their advisers. Governments have not learned from the CSA, tax credits etc so we now have the ‘joys’ of UC. IDS’s ‘humpty dumpty’ benefit that attempts to stick back together the old means tested benefits (remember IS as originally conceived) with a totally new administrative system (driven by IT providers ‘solutions’?) that appears to be constructed in such a way that nobody knows / can find out what’s going on.

I worked in CAB through the Thatcher recession before becoming a welfare rights specialist and have seen the ‘rise’ of the sector from CAB plus local community based projects, through CLACs and CLANs, the move from grant funding to service contracted services (with certain national organisations looking more like Capita than voluntary sector providers) to the current cuts and pressures in the advice sector.

From where I’m standing (well sitting) whilst there have been major changes in the benefits system, the advice sector and society at large it also looks like things have gone full circle or not really changed that much at all when one looks below the surface.

rant over - back to ranting at [insert benefit service of your choice here].

stevenmcavoy
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Welfare rights officer - Enable Scotland

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another social sciences graduate but i was 06 before i graduated and realised my degree still left me unemployable and i ended up a volunteer in a cab!

its interesting seeing different generations of advice workers having similar backgrounds.  one of my concerns is how we will attract and retain people to advice in the future as the terms and conditions dont often match the level of knowledge needed.

Gareth Morgan
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CEO, Ferret, Cardiff

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I did photography in an art college so I had a clear and direct path into advice work.