NAWRA has received a letter from David Rutley, Minister for Welfare Delivery responding to our concerns about the Help to Claim service – in particular, the lack of face-to-face support in the service and the general lack of support for people needing advice given the ramping up of ‘Voluntary move to UC’. The Minister says – ‘I thought it may be helpful to make clear Help to Claim is designed to be accessed after someone has decided to apply for …
Our Chair, Alan Markey (Coventry Independent Advice Service) has written NAWRA’s annual report 2021-22. Read it to find out more about our successful year of online conferences, consultation responses and plans for the future.
The notes, slides and videos from our Spring conference held on Zoom on 3 and 4 March 2022 are now available in the members area of the website. Not a member? Find out more about joining.
NAWRA members will meet on Zoom on 3 March 2022 (1.00pm-4.30pm) and 4 March 2022 (9.30am-1.00pm) We will be hearing from a wide variety of welfare rights practitioners and academics. Dr Michael Orton (Warwick University) will lead a participatory session on the work of the Commission for Social Security and Fran Bennett (Oxford University) will present her recent paper on the policy challenges posed by the design of Universal Credit. There will also be informative and useful sessions on Mind’s …
On 26 January 2022 the DWP announced that Citizens Advice in partnership with Citizens Advice Scotland will deliver the universal credit Help to Claim service from April 2022. While under the current contract face to face support is available, the new contract is limited to just telephony and digital channels. NAWRA believes that this is completely inappropriate for vulnerable people who are seeking help because they struggle with those channels. NAWRA is also concerned at the Minister’s comment that those …
