What next?

The event generated several practical suggestions about how to improve the landscape of benefit changes for vulnerable people at both a local and national scale.

This event identified the need for Easy Read training – which was facilitated by Mencap Liverpool & Sefton in January 2020.

Please find below a summary of the other suggestions put forward at this event.

As you read through these suggestions, can you identify:

• One suggestion from the event that you could
  pass onto someone in your organisation?
• One suggestion that could impact on your own
  practice?
• One local issue raised in this document that you
  are passionate about changing – how could you take a step towards doing this?
• One national issue raised in this document that
  you are passionate about changing – how could you take a step towards changing
  this?

General

• Develop a culture in which people are treated equally
  and with dignity and build institutions and systems that enable this.
• Introduce more education and awareness raising
  about learning disabilities from school onwards.
• Look for opportunities for collaboration, such
  as: sharing good practice; joint staff/ volunteer training;
  collecting evidence that can be shared and used
  for awareness raising and campaigning.
• Utilise the strength of multi-agency provision
  by organisations that have a good knowledge of their clients and their needs
  and potential.
• There is a need for more awareness of mental
  health issues.
• There is scope for more volunteers who could
  offer online support.

Good practice for service providers

• Caseloads are very often too big which negatively
  affects the service provided.
• There is a need for greater continuity – staff
  staying with a client throughout the process.
• Training for workers and volunteers needs to lay
  the basis for a person-centred approach.
• Training also needs to include making clear the
  range of potential partner organisations and ones to which people can be
  referred, such as law centres.
• Equality (and environmental) impact assessments
  can help in the measurement of  policy
  effectiveness and conducting cost benefit analysis.Introduce customer/user forums and ensure they
  are representative of the range of users.

Foodbanks and other food provision

• Often seem to be in competition – they need to
  work better together and avoid duplication and food wastage.
• May also need to provide updates on items
  required, including sanitary products, nappies and toilet rolls.
• Could provide recipes inside food parcels.
• Need to go beyond crisis food provision to
  develop co-ops, food markets and growing schemes that can help build resilience
  and self-respect.

Administrative changes in the benefits system

• Provide a more welcoming environment and
  reception services in job centres and include on-site advocacy and more help to
  guide claimants through procedures.
• Make specialist/vulnerable people teams easier
  to access.
• Reduce waiting times on phone calls and call backs
  – currently the length of time support staff spend on hold is hugely wasteful
  and greatly reduces the number of clients they can help.
• Rethink advocacy processes and especially the
  authority to act for clients. (For example, needing to have them present is one
  of the factors that makes the telephone waiting times so frustrating because,
  if the client cannot wait, the call has to be abandoned altogether.)
• In relation to access and use of the on-line
  system, introduce more secure networks using public computers and reintroduce
  telephone and personal claims.
• Use plain English and make benefit letters
  easy-to-read.
• Stamp the envelopes of benefit letters with a
  message indicating there is support inside to discourage them being thrown away
  unopened.

Policy changes

• Restore direct payment of housing benefit to
  landlords.
• Return to payments being made more frequently.
• Reduce the five weeks wait for UC advance
  payment, which leads to debt.
• Include free school meals in Universal Credit
  and find ways of reducing the stigma of free school meals.
• Why is Council Tax not part of UC?
• Treating benefit recipients as individuals (i.e.
  not couples /family assessments) would be simpler and encourage stability in
  relationships.

Feeding Liverpool’s Role

• Events such as this one help to raise awareness
  about:  the range of organisations that offer support in
  this area; the scope for partnership and/or referrals; What works and what doesn’t work.
• Feeding Liverpool can use its website, social media and other
  forms of communication to help: dispel myths about poverty and the benefits
  system; provide a channel for collecting evidence and
  stories.

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