Salford Citizens Advice
Early Spring (Quarter 3) Partners’ Briefing:
Client analysis and trends:
Summary:
We saw 3,964 clients in Q3 2024 (3,804 in Q3 last year). We dealt with 19,602 issues (17,008 in Q3 last year). On average there were almost 5 issues to every client. Financial gains in Welfare Benefits & Universal Credit were £2,199,703. Our added value gains of £30,710.
Our online referral portal continued its success as 18 different agencies made 503 referrals.
In more detail:
Client numbers are down on the last quarter, by 3.4%. Issues overall are up some 10% compared to the last quarter. Most notably a doubling of financial services & capability issues, which is reflective of the increased referrals from Salford Assist. Health & community care (up 75%), Travel & transport (up 39%) and Consumer goods & services (up 31%) are all up. Benefit gains are up 9.1%. Added value gains up a significant 172%, largely due to a one-off client sickness and pension payments from an employer and more generally seasonal increased demand for charitable grant assistance.
Referrals incoming rose by 49%. With the majority of the increases coming from Salford Assist (up 59%), City council and Wellbeing matters Community Connectors (up 38%). Increased take up work around Pension Credit (and Winter Fuel Payments) as a part of the national and Salford campaigns have produced an uplift in our benefits and tax credits work (for pension credit) but have also fed into an increase in community care issues which have seen a 41% increase compared to the average over Q1 and Q2.
Strong additional income gains were seen in Pension Credit claims, up 70%, or an extra £7k just in this quarter. Additional gains are likely to show in the next quarter. There was a linked rise in Attendance Allowance gains in this quarter, which was up 32%, just over £46k. Again, this trend is likely to be reflected in the next quarter’s figures. The higher Universal Credit gained figure (up 17%) relates to the continued impact of the DWP’s managed migration programme. The notable rise in ‘added value’ through charitable grant or food vouchers, of £7,828 in cash terms, is nearly a fourfold increase on the previous quarter, and even allowing for a seasonal effect is alarming. The additional issues in this category were up 26%.
The geographical and demographic profiles remained stable.
High levels of debt:
Debt enquiry numbers stayed high, and we saw no real seasonal dip as we would usually in the run up to Christmas. There is a slow burn effect of fixed rate interest rates which has led to a noticeable dampening effect into the way interest rates changes have fed into debt advice pressures. Unfortunately, this same dampening effect will mean that the impact of current and subsequent reductions in rates will take a long while to fed through into reductions of numbers of people in serious debt.
The picture shows continued cost of living pressures impacting on households, and the recent cold weather spell will see this in all likelihood maintained through the next quarter, which is traditionally one of high numbers of debt presentations. Unfortunately, cold weather spells require households to pay more for their fuel, and with prepayment metering this means real instability for weekly and monthly budgets.
We are still seeing pressures in the housing market with enquires levels running high, but stably so, giving some hope that the market is settling for the short term. We still think that anticipated changes in housing rights, although greatly welcome, may increase numbers of section 21 evections over the short and medium terms, before reducing – as some landlords take ‘precautionary’ actions.
Immigration enquires remain high, which is a result of the e-visa programme rollout, this is up more than a quarter on the last six months and is anticipated to build as the programme’s rollout is continued.
The Employment Market continues to show promise, with the steady but slow drop in employment advice issues suggesting an improvement in Salford’s economy, or at least in terms of the local labour market.
Other news:
85th Anniversary Celebration:
We held our 85th Anniversary celebration in November – with a special guest speaker Councillor Hannah Smith Robinson, an ex-volunteer! The service was established here in Salford as one of the first Citizens Advice Bureaux the very next day after the declaration of the second world war and was a part of secret war preparations.
Housing Legal Aid Service:
We are delighted to announce that the legal aid service for housing law has been restored. This is provided as a Greater Manchester Citizens Advice service for us, by our colleagues at Bolton and Bury Citizens Advice. Clients can access it locally.
Advice First Aid Project Development:
We were delighted to be awarded a small lottery grant to fund the development of this project over the next six months. We are keen to speak to any community groups and to hear how they would like to see us shape the full service. The idea of the programme will be to train colleagues in local community groups to respond to urgent advice needs, how to refer clients for ongoing advice and to improve general awareness of advice. We are especially looking at improving access for client groups where an additional disadvantage might be faced.
Pension Credit and Winter Fuel Payment Take-up work:
We were working throughout the winter with local partners to help drive take up of pension credit ahead of the government’s deadline for the removal of the winter fuel payment. It’s too early to see the full impact of this work, along with the council’s ‘replacement’ scheme. The rise in pension credit applications has caused a backlog in processing.
Tom Togher
February 12th, 2025.