Summer Partners’ Briefing:
Analysis Summary Quarter 1 2024/25
Total client numbers were 4,003 with 18,439 issues. Client numbers are 3% up on the last quarter, and are equal to the first quarter of last year. The growth in the number of issues per client has remained stable over the last six months, and the upwards trend of issues per client increasing seems to have stabilised.
This quarter, taking a closer look at client diversity – 22% of clients have identified as being in categories that are ‘not white’, which is significantly higher than the suggested similar category from census data (which shows Salford as being 82% white). This shows that we are ensuring good access to people who are ethnically marginalised. For our clients that identified at disabled, 9.6%, which is broadly in keeping with the City’s 10% from the census data. Some 22% of the city’s population described their health as fair (14.6%), bad (5.7%), or very bad (1.7%) (∑22) against 34% of our clients describing themselves as having ‘long term health conditions’. This larger showing of people with long term health conditions / disability is likely to be because this client group requires disproportionately greater help with benefits, and health and care enquires.
Our highest client wards are Broughton, Pendleton & Charlestown, and Weaste & Seedley; which is no change.
Total benefit enquiries (5,944) are broadly equal to the last quarter (5,982) but are 3.4% up on this time last year.
Universal Credit enquiries this quarter (2,155) are down slightly on the previous quarter by 8.2%, but up on last year’s quarter 1 by 14.5% – showing the impact of ‘managed migration’ to Universal Credit, but a trend that has stabilised, at least over the winter/ Christmas period.
Housing enquiries have remained stable at 2,994 for the quarter, and are now running at 2% up over the last year, suggesting at least a tendency towards a more stable housing market, after quite a protracted period of pressure. (There has been some ‘advice supply’ weakness around the local housing legal aid provision).
Similarly, the number of people with employment problems (445) has remained in line with what is nearing a two-year stable mean – suggesting to us a maintained period of stability in the local economy.
The previously commented upon spike on bereavement enquiries is still running at something like 15% higher than usual but does seem to be stabilising at this rate.
Immigration enquires at 538 is the notable feature of this quarter’s changed profile, being up 32% on the last quarter, and some 14% up compared to this time last year. This is ahead of the Home Office’s push around the introduction on the system of eVisas. The roll out of this new system is likely to have broader implications for statutory and other service providers.
Referrals from external agencies remain high, at 429 clients this quarter, with the biggest single referrer being the local authority, followed by ‘social services’ at the hospital. The actual number of different external agencies using our partner referral system was 17 this quarter – slightly down following a recent data cleanse around data sharing agreements to ensure good GDPR (data protection regulation) compliance.
Our web offer was disturbed toward the end of the period as we experienced some technical difficulties switching over to a newly designed website. We had over 21,000 visits to the site over the quarter, which is down by about 40%.
In summary, people continued to present with more problems and more complex advice needs than has historically been the case. Service use is broadly stable, but this is as much a function of the supply of advice as of the need for advice. We continue to have an excellent reach to clients who are marginalised by ethnicity, disability or long-term health problems. The impact of Universal Credit migration has stabilised – perhaps briefly. There are some signs of a more stable local housing market, as well as maintenance of a near two-year (7 quarters) trend to a more stable local economy.
Immigration issues are running high, without any obvious external policy driver, as yet. Benefits gained remain stable, if not up on the last comparable quarter last year by 17%.
Refreshed Website:
We’ve had a complete refresh of our website. Our website is a critical way for us to support advice and information for people. It’s an important part of our public education work – helping to make sure people know their rights. We use the website to advertise any temporary changes to our services. You can also use it to access online advice.
Beat the crisis podcast series:
We are grateful to the National Lottery Fund who have funded us to produce a series of podcast – our beat the crisis series. These have been published on the website, and if you would like to have a link to them for another organisations website, please just ask us.
Celebrating Volunteers:
We were celebrating volunteers’ week in June – a special opportunity to say thank you to the more than fifty people who volunteer for us every week. We are truly grateful, and say thank you to them every day, but in national volunteers’ week we say a special thank you!
We are always looking for new volunteers – you can find out more on this website.
Expansion of our Food Bank Partnership work:
We were delighted to expand our partnership work with the Trussell Trust and are now able to provide advice at all of Salford’s food banks. We have been working for many years with a range of food clubs and food banks in the city to deliver the Feeding Salford plan. A key ambition of the plan was to make sure that people using food projects could have access to advice.
We are grateful to the Trussell Trust for funding this work.
Cyber Essentials:
We are pleased to announce that we have had our status as a ‘cyber essentials’ organisation agreed. This has required us to make some changes to the way we use our technology, but it also importantly means we can be sure we keep your data, keep your information safe.
Tom Togher
July 25, 2024.