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Pub staff to give benefit advice
Here’s a Friday afternoon news story that will warm the cockles.
Inside Housing reports that hairdressers, pub staff and faith leaders could be trained to give welfare advice under plans being drawn up by a housing association. Plus Dane, which owns 18,000 homes across Merseyside and Cheshire, is looking at ways to ensure tenants know about benefit changes which come into effect next April.
The association estimates that 3,000 of its households will be affected by the ‘bedroom tax’, under which social tenants with spare rooms will be docked £14 of benefit a week on average. Plus Dane believes tenants do not necessarily take notice of leaflets pushed through doors, but do listen to ‘community advocates’ giving informal advice in a relaxed setting.
Under the scheme, dubbed ‘hair, prayer and beer’ by chief executive Ken Perry, Plus Dane would work with employers and faith groups to train their staff on welfare changes. A spokesperson said: ‘We want to reach the customers who will bear the brunt of the changes and we are trying to be more innovative.’
For the whole story, see Pub staff to give benefit advice Oh, and mines a pint of Pride please…..
Now, if they could only train up pub staff to undertake WCA assessments…
Many’s the time I’ve been unable to mobilise a distance of 50 meters!!
Around here people in boozers have been giving legal advice for years.
They’ve forgotten to include the bus drivers! Always so much more believable than mere Welfare Rights Advisers: “But the bus driver told me I’d get an extra £11 a week if I’m a registered alcoholic.”
I always trust the wisdom of a taxi driver, they should be included too
I used to run an outreach advice service and one of our venues was the bar of a local rugby club. I didn’t serve drinks though.
What about the bloke down the road? Most of our clients have already had a chat with him before they arrive ay our office.
And on Paul’s pint of Pride, I’d advise a few pints of ESB both before and after getting into the finer points of how SDPs work. Always makes perfect sense then.
..hairdressers, pub staff and faith leaders…
I honestly feel they couldn’t do any worse that the Contact Centre staff.
They’ve forgotten to include the bus drivers!
I always trust the wisdom of a taxi driver ..
‘hair, prayer and beer” and steer.
I think that’s a genuinely good idea - if they’re properly trained.
Or do you think there’s enough advice provision around?
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Scrub the barman idea. Benefit paid by voucher - No beer!
Now Posties are a good idea…...
Round here, the G4S security guard at our appeal tribunal venue used to give advice to appellants who did not have a rep.
He got moved on to another site for some reason
:)
I think that’s a genuinely good idea - if they’re properly trained.
Or do you think there’s enough advice provision around?
It is a really interesting approch. I would be worried about things like keeping up to date (if the scheme runs on) and what happens if something goes wrong.
As a way of increasing knowledge about benefits and trying to reach people, it is defiantely worth examining.
But pub staff (along with taxi drivers) are the msot inclined to disappear when you’re sat around the table in your local, someone asks what you do for a living & you reply “I work for the benefits”.
As has been noted elsewhere, properly engaging with “problem noticers” as well as “problem solvers” has to be a key part of any strategy to assist those people affected, or potentially affected, by welfare reforms, now and forthcoming. The more awareness there is on the pertinent issues, and the earlier interventions that can occur as a result, should help reduce the incidences of debt, rent arrears and homelessness to some degree.
How we overcome the lack of specialist advice is much more difficult, with legal aid cuts set to bite from next April. Whether the soon to be announced Cabinet Office advice review, with £20 million to be allocated over the next financial year, can plug some of these gaps will become clearer when precise details become available.
Training is the key for signposting etc. but people have a tendancy to want to ‘help’ beyond their abilities. One of the biggest problems is the individual nature of each situation. Similar with doing talks to groups. Being asked to do a talk about Carers Allowance is the classic. You can either go into all the permutations (the audience nods off) or simply send out the message about everyone being different. It’s a no win situation.
Back in the late 70s, when I was working at Citizens Advice the first time round, the dreaded opener was always “It said on the Jimmy Young programme…”
I suppose this might end up giving some increased credibility to the other deflationary opener, along the lines of “Some bloke down the pub told me I can get…..”
I get clients who say “Someone at the bus-stop said I should get more money….”
A man walks into a bar. He said “ouch”! It was an iron bar. Another man walks up to him as he was lying on the floor and says, “you should put a claim in for that”. The first man says “what can I claim”? The second man says “well, actually, nowt. While you were unconscious the Tories abolished the welfare state”.
Whatever happened to the Man on the Clapham Omnibus? I think he re-appeared in the Eighties as the officious bystander. I see a chance for his return as the nosy barber?
And taxi drivers would be self-defeating. You might get a good appeal talk, yes, but there’d likely be 60 quid on the meter. Losing by appearing to win?
We use the Paloma Faith advice model in our office: ‘Do you want the Truth or Something Beautiful?’ Unfortunately, a lot of clients want the latter and not the former.
I have to admit I can never switch off and have been known to give benefits advice while in the queue at my corner shop!
I can sympathise with that. In was in the pub the other night opposite where I work and, incidentally, opposite Atos medical inside Bootle DBC, having a quiet pint and reading my paper. There was an extended family at the next table having a meal and one of them said that he was to have his ESA medical in the morning over the road and that he suffered with anxiety. I couldn’t resist it. I leaned across and quietly told him what I do for a living before telling him to take someone with him tomorrow or he’s had it.
Dear me, Nevip- your pub is fast becoming an extension of your office isn’t it?
I hope you have time to get a few jars down your neck as well…
Chortle! You’d be surprised how many clients I bump into in there as well. Most have the good grace not to bother me with work. It’s hard work drinking beer but someone has to do it.
Careful, you’ll be quoted as proving that claimants spend all their money on drink.
I leaned across and quietly told him what I do for a living before telling him to take someone with him tomorrow or he’s had it.
I’m still trying to work out whether that’d make him less or more anxious.
He might struggle with social engagement descriptors as well, what with him being able to talk to strangers like nevip in the pub.
Aye Tom - theres few stranger than Nevip! (only kidding Paul)
I also have it on good authority that even my mother is constantly rubbishing me with the neighbours. She keeps mentioning things like childbirth and b****y agony. She always did bear grudges that woman.