18 February 2014
Argyll Hotel, Inveraray.
Contents
SummaryPage 3
EvaluationPage 6
Appendix One Page 7
Programme
Appendix Two Page 8
Welfare Reform and Impact on Life Course Groups, Michael Turnow
Appendix Three Page 12
Child Poverty in Scotland, Alison Lord
Appendix Four Page 16
Early Years Collaborative, Liz Strang
Appendix Five Page 18
Fuel Poverty in Argyll, Rachel McNicol
Appendix Six Page 21
Welfare Reform – Impact in Argyll and Bute, Michael Nicol
Appendix Seven Page 24
Rural Poverty, Welfare Reform and “Fish”, Gillian McInnes
Appendix Eight Page 28
List of attendees
Summary
On Tuesday 28th February 2014 The Argyll and Bute Health and Wellbeing Network held a development day in the Argyll Hotel, Inveraray.
The themes for the day were Early Years and Welfare reform. Alison McGrory, Health Improvement Principal for Argyll and Bute CHP, Chaired the day. There were six speakers throughout the day as well as action planning sessions. A total of 43 guests, from NHS Local Authority and Third Sector groups attended.
The speakers were:
- Michael Tornow, NHS Health Scotland
- Alison Lord, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG)
- Liz Strang, Argyll and Bute Council
- Rachel McNicol, Argyll, Lomond and the Isles Energy (ALIEnergy).
- Michael Nicol, Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB)
- Gillian McInnes, Argyll Community Housing Association (ACHA)
During the lunch break Myra McDonald, from Argyll and Bute Advice Network (ABAN), gave a rolling demonstration of the online interagency referral system.
Action Planning Sessions
The morning Action Planning session took place after the first two speakers. The feeling in the room was that the negative effects of welfare reform stark. The first question the groups were asked to consider was:
What can you do to progress this agenda in your job?
Information
- People feel swamped with information. They need a centralised hub to get information and to share it in easily accessible forms. This hub would hold information on local and national services. Could use ABAN throughout NHS, Council and Third Sector as a single point of access to information about services. Wider advertising and promotion of ABAN throughout the sectors, ie via Health and Wellbeing Networks. Partners need to actively register their service on the ABAN site.
- Social media such as Twitter and the Health and Wellbeing Networks should be used to promote information. Help people to navigate systems and signpost them on.
- Information and support to help people access and navigate the system for themselves.
- People need supported to feel that they can and should be able to access resources.
- Organisations / staff need to ensure access to whole communities.
Training and Awareness
- Support for staff. Provide awareness raising training for frontline staff in basic welfare rights information. Ensure staff know about Child Poverty and have this included in their Continual Professional Development.
- Child Poverty added to Child Protection training.
- Raise awareness of services and events and put a ‘removal by…’ date on all posters to ensure only relevant information is displayed places. Training in welfare reform and determinants of health, attitudes, values and issues related to money and medication and train with other organisations.
- Changing people’s attitudes. All / both ends of the social scale need to take this on board.
- Training of GPs in welfare rights.
Politics and Policy
- Lack of political voice, we need to be collective in our approach. All stay angry and not accept the situation. Lobby, challenge and vote where possible. Change policy, campaign and petition local groups.
- Campaign and petition local groups to ensure that there is an equity of access rather than equal payment policy. Local actions with local facilities.
Housing Providers
- Providing tenants and service users with ABAN information/leaflets/links to inform what services are available.
- Changing policy on arrears to give more flexibility to tenants to achieve payment without further significant impact on living expenses.
- Managers and peers being prepared to challenge staff who are not understanding or supportive of low income households.
- Proactive approach in housing to young people applying for (joint) tenancies.
- Change our budgeting forms to include things like children’s school lunch, bus fare and school uniforms. Provide budget income expenditure forms to those whose benefits change rather than just statements. Advising tenants who declare a vulnerability such as financial or domestic abuse.
Young People
- Education in school. Raising expectations.
- After school activities for lower income children.
- Higher education opportunities.
Society and Services
- People need to input to society in order to feel part of it.
- Volunteering
- Time banking
- Get business on board with these processes.
- Booklet from Child Poverty Action Group sent to each nursery and pre-5 units.
- Promoting Healthy Start again
- How easily accessible services are such as housing benefit.
- Rural areas - access to services, recommendations to be made
- Welfare rights information / person located in GP services
- Income maximisation – report to Scottish Government partners to feed into this process
- Promotion of named person service
The afternoon Action Planning session took place after the presentation from Michael Nicol at the Citizens Advice Bureau. The discussions were centred around the question:
What can we do collectively in Argyll and Bute to progress this agenda?
Scottish Government
- Scottish government needs to reassess evidence base around programmes such as healthy child and youth justice, parenting. Building resilience to withstand adversity.
- Reporting hardship an advocacy issues up to Scottish Government.
Community Planning Partnership
- Community Planning Partnership should collectively renew role of ABAN and develop strategic leadership.
- Strategic prescribing - raise awareness of role of ABAN with primary care.
- Develop case studies.
- Understanding what services are there, what supports are available to support families and to reduce fragmentation and rework between services including engaging community to build capacity.
- Budgeting life skills throughout life course.
- People struggling to budget - training could be undertaken in schools as part of curriculum.
- Reassessing infrastructure for broadband.
- Transportation etc to bring jobs to rurally deprived areas.
- Increase awareness of what people can access. There is a lack of equity but we need to find solutions to increase access.
- Make sure “the people who can” make change are aware.
Health and Wellbeing Networks
- Health and Wellbeing Networks may have a key role in leading on single issues for a limited period of time and ensuring the engagement of “the people who can” from all agencies. Not in addition to job description of Network Co-ordinators, instead of, and some additional funding / training may be required.
- Everyone signposting on to other services.
- Cascade information to as wide a range of people as possible.
Questions
- How do we find the people who are at risk?
- How to reach the hard to reach? Those with mental health issues face added difficulty.
HWN development Day 18/02/2014
Evaluation
Strongly Agree / Agree / No Thought / Disagree / Strongly DisagreeI feel there are positive actions I can take to improve the situation / 12 / 13
I feel motivated to take action / 9 / 16
This event was useful to me / 15 / 11
I am now better informed about the early years collaborative and the effects of welfare reform / 13 / 17
The results from the evaluation showed that participants did gain knowledge of welfare reform and the early years work. Furthermore, participants felt motivated to take action and that there were positive actions they could take to mitigate against the negative effects of welfare reform. All the participants who completed the evaluation felt the event was useful to them.
It now falls to individuals to undertake those positive actions discussed at the event. This report will be widely circulated which should serve as a reminder for those who attended and build awareness of those who didn’t.
Appendix one
Programme
10.15am Registration
10.25-10.30am Welcome
Alison McGrory, NHS Highland
10.30-11.05am Welfare Reform and Impact on Life Course Groups
Michael Tornow, NHS Health Scotland
11.05-11.35am Children Poverty, an Overview
Alison Lord, Child Poverty Action Group
11.35-11.50 Action Planning
11.50-12.05pm Comfort Break
12.10-12.35pm Early Years Collaborative
Liz Strang, Argyll and Bute Council
12.35-1.15pm Lunch– Rolling Demonstration of On-line ABAN Interagency
Referral System by Myra MacDonald, Argyll and Bute
Advice Network (ABAN)
1.15-1.35pm Fuel Poverty in Argyll
Rachel McNicol, Argyll Lomond and the Islands Energy
1.40-2.15pm Welfare Reform – Impact in Argyll and Bute
Michael Nicol, Citizens Advice Bureau
2.15- 2.25pm Action Planning
2.30-3.05pmRural Poverty, Welfare Reform and ‘FISH’
Gillian McInnes, Argyll Community Housing Association (ACHA)
3.10-3.20pm Action Planning
3.20pm Reflections and Thanks
Alison McGrory, NHS Highland
3.30pm Close
Appendix Two
Welfare Reform and
Impact on Life Course Groups
Michael Tornow
Welfare reform in the UK and Scotland
Key points:
On 5 December 2012 the UK Chancellor announced that annual increases of many working-age benefits from April 2013 until April 2016, excluding disability and carer’s benefits, will be limited to 1% per year.
It is estimated that 15,000 children will be pushed into poverty in Scotland, and that 200,000 children across the UK will be in relative poverty as a result of benefits being up rated by only 1% from 2013–16.
In April 2013 the Scottish Government introduced a welfare fund which will include crisis payments for those who cannot afford to feed their children.
Benefits not subject to the 1% annual increase, such as disability benefits, will rise at the rate of CPI rather than the more generous RPI used previously.
The weekly rates of Personal Independence Payment were published on 13 December 2012, and are similar to those paid for Disability Living Allowance. The DWP anticipate that 330,000 of the 560,000 Disability Living Allowance claimants to be reassessed by October 2015 for Personal Independence Payments will either lose their benefit entirely or have payments reduced.
There is a lack of published detail about the Universal Credit despite it being initiated from 2013.
The Welfare Reform (Further Provisions) (Scotland) Act was enacted on 7 August 2012 to allow the Scottish Government some power to mitigate for the negative impacts of welfare reform. Practical details are still to be published.
In February 2013, Scottish regulations were published which ensure that passported benefits, such as free school meals continue.
Scottish Government, and COSLA are providing £40 million in 2013/14 to maintain Council Tax Benefit payments to claimants once responsibility for the benefit transfers to Scottish Government.
From 2008 until 2014, disabled people claiming Incapacity Benefit are being transferred to Employment Support Allowance, resulting in incomes being reduced and, in some cases, benefits are time limited.
As of April 2012, eligibility criteria for Tax Credits, Child Benefit and Housing Benefit are being significantly tightened.
From April 2013 single people and couples who are housing association and local authority tenants with more than one bedroom have their Housing Benefit reduced, on average by 14%.
In Scotland, 8 out of 10 households facing reductions in Housing Benefit include a disabled adult. The ‘bedroom tax’ aspect of Housing Benefit was subject to a legal challenge by law firm Leigh Day, on the grounds that disabled people in the UK are disproportionately affected.
From September 2013 a benefit cap of £26,000 a year is being introduced throughout Great Britain. This translates to weekly limits of £350 for individuals, or £500 a week for families. Claimants of Working Tax Credit or Disability Living Allowance are exempt.
In Scotland in 2013/14, approximately 2,500 households will on average lose £93 a week with around 3,500 adults and 7,000 children affected by the benefits cap. Households containing three or more children or living in high rent areas will be most affected.
Impact of welfare reforms on life course groups
Early years
Young lives
Income work and health
Older people
Early years
Financial support conditions have now tightened for single parents, with Income Support eligibility continuing only until children are aged under five, instead of the previous support to age ten.
To be able to claim Working Tax Credit, single parents will be required to work at least 16 hours per week.
Annual increases of 1% between April 2013–16 (for Working Tax Credit, Income Support and Child Benefit) mean a real-term reduction in the financial resource of both single and dual adult recipient households, putting families on the lowest incomes at increased risk of child poverty.
Early years continued
Couples with children claiming Working Tax Credit now need to work a combined total of 24 hours or more per week, with one of them working a minimum of 16 hours.
Means testing has tightened for Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit entitlement. For the former, support will not be given if a claimants’ salary exceeds £26,000 with one child, or £32,000 with two children.
Universal Child Benefit has now stopped, with higher paid individuals no longer being entitled to payments.
Eligibility for free school meals after Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments are introduced is still unclear.
Access to Healthy Start vouchers for milk and fruit available to pregnant women or mothers with children aged four or under and who are on a low income) will continue once Universal Credit is introduced.
Young Lives
Age restrictions often prevent younger people from accessing financial support. Only 18 year olds can claim Jobseeker’s Allowance and this threshold is higher for claimants in education, who are not entitled to claim the benefit until aged 20.
The eligibility ages for Working Tax Credit and the higher payment of Housing Benefit were raised from 18 to 25 and from 25 to 35 respectively.
People aged under 25 can no longer claim Working Tax Credit and it is now a requirement to work a minimum of 30 hours per week to be eligible for this benefit. As full-time employment is scarce, particularly for young people, those who struggle to find this level of employment will be unable to claim Working Tax Credit.
Young lives continued
Housing Benefit payments have been reduced, with only people aged over 35 now receiving sufficient benefit to rent their own home, compared to the previous entitlement for those aged 25. People aged under 35 will now need to share accommodation, which will result in limiting the housing options for young people.
Young disabled people aged between 16 and 20 (or 25 for those in education) are no longer able to claim contribution-based Employment Support Allowance. Young people will need to claim income- based Employment Support Allowance instead, which is means-tested and may disadvantage some claimants.
Annual increases of 1% between April 2013–16 (for Working Tax Credit, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment Support Allowance), mean a real-term reduction in the financial resource of both young single people and young couples.
Income work and health
Restrictions now apply to financial support for people in work or unemployed and on a low income.
Claimants are no longer entitled to claim either Income Support or income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance if they work more than 24 hours (or more than 16 hours if they are the partner of a claimant).
People who are no longer entitled to these benefits or Tax Credits may cease to be eligible for passported benefits such as free school meals or concessionary travel, which would further depreciate a limited income.
Support for housing costs is being significantly curtailed, which will amount to a considerable cut in income for people who rely on this support. The amount of Housing Benefit available as Local Housing Allowance to private sector tenants was restricted to 30% of the value of local rents. Previously this was paid at 50%.
Appendix Three
Child Poverty in Scotland: an overview
Alison Lord
About CPAG:
2 strands to the work that we do:
1. Provide advice, information and training on Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits
2. Campaigning and policy work around child poverty
Definition of Poverty:
•People are considered as living in poverty if they live in households with less than 60% of median household income
•A single person is in poverty if they are living on less than £128 per week
•A lone parent family with two children (e.g. aged 5 and 14) are living in poverty if they are living on less than £264 per week
•A couple with two children (again aged 5 and 14) are living in poverty if they are living on less than £357 a week
Child Poverty in Scotland: context
200 000 (20%) children living in poverty (2011/12, after housing costs – 15% or 150 000 before housing costs)
Some children at even greater risk
−families someone is disabled (I in 3)
-one parent families (nearly half)
-families without paid work (over two thirds)
-
Affects families across Scotland,
−ECP child poverty map of Scotland
−nearly every Scottish LA has areas where more than one in five children in poverty
−Argyll & Bute 14%
Overall impact
Lowest-income households with children affected the most (IFS, 2012)
Latest IFS forecast increase to 28.4% by 2020 – c70 000 more children into poverty in Scotland alone (IFS 2013)
Benefit changes and lower wage growth forecast to leave majority of children below the Minimum Income Standard by 2015
Child poverty: trends
210 000 (21%) children living in poverty (2010/11after housing costs – 17% or 170 000 before housing costs)
Some children at particular risk
−families affected by disability
-one parent families
-families without paid work
-
Affects families across Scotland, but concentration and nature varies