INVERLEITH & FORTH VOLUNTARY SECTOR FORUM
North Edinburgh Arts Centre
6th August 2014
10-12am
WELCOME AND APOLOGIESMorag Wilson - (MW)
Jen Richards - - (JR)
Kate Wimpress - (KW)
Angela Dias - AD)
Steph Guerin - SG)
Dorothy Maclauchlan - DM)
Helen Tait - (HT)
Elaine Lennon - (EL)
Jim Pattison - (JP)
APOLOGIES
Kevin Ross - Granton Youth Centre
Kirsty Sutherland – Pilton Community Gardeners
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
The minutes were approved.
MATTERS ARISING
Community Transport
HT wanted to put some context to the comments made at the last meeting with regard to Community Transport.
Having not been at the previous meeting HT asked for further clarification on the issues noted in the minutes around community transport. As the (CEC) designated community transport operator for the northern quadrant of the city, HT expressed her concerns that these issues had not been brought to her attention or discussed in a professional manner. HT addressed the issues raised as follows:
- Is transport available to the community? – PEP has 90 affiliated community groups. It is not always possible to accommodate everyrequest with only 10 minibuses available for hire however we do our utmost to please were we can. (Early bookings are advisable)
- Should it be called community transport? - Community Transport is the term used to describe passenger transport schemes which are owned and operated by local community groups. Services are provided on a not-for-profit basis.
- Where are we in terms of the Community Transport Review? – Stage One of the Review has come to a conclusion and pointed out opportunities for both savings and service delivery. In progressing Stage 2 the Council is keen to build on the approach taken in Stage 1 working closely with service providers and EVOC
- Transport Contracts from elsewhere – PEP only has contracts with local community groups using our service on a daily basis
It is noted that North West Carers also quoted ‘due to high booking fees we had to cancel’. PEP receive a minimal grant to provide 5,200 passenger journeys per annum. PEP actually provides overall approx. 40,000 passenger journeys per annum. We therefore are responsible for ongoing fund raising through our bus appeal to cover running costs & maintenance costs etc and fleet renewal.
10 weekly safety checks throughout the year
2 x 6 monthly safety checks on tail lifts
Weight checks yearly
Tyres Yearly MOT’s
Insurance Volunteer Expenses (Drivers & Escorts)
Expenditure on keeping the fleet on the road is high and I therefore suggest the hire fee of £40 is a not for profit figure. Should you wish to discuss this further then PEP is pleased to continue to listen to groups with an aim to continual improvement of services where applicable.
NP Response to last minutes
JD informed the Forum that she had received a response from Scott Donkin, Forth & Inverleith PIM, to the minutes circulated from the last meeting. JD expressed her appreciation of Scott’s response and felt that this needed to be discussed under Any Other Business. JD circulated hard copy of the email to all attending.
WELFARE REFORM PRESENTATION – ALAN SINCLAIR – WELFARE REFORM MANAGER – CEC
KW Introduced Alan Sinclair and thanked him for his attendance at the meeting. Alan informed the meeting as follows:
Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) can be paid for 3-6 months.
With the introduction of Welfare Reform it became clear housing policy needed reviewed. It was also recognised that there was not enough in the budget to mitigate the full impact of Welfare Reform and in particular the Bedroom Tax. JD has added the following to the minutes for everyone’s information:
- Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) can be provided by councils to claimants who are entitled to housing benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit, where they need further financial assistance towards their housing costs.
- Councils are responsible for administering DHPs and they have relatively wide discretion as to how they are distributed. DHPs can be used to help claimants in a variety of ways, including paying a shortfall in benefit where a tenant is affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy (referred to as “the bedroom tax”).
- The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) provides councils with funding for DHPs. Up until 2011, GB funding was £20m a year, but has since been substantially increased to help councils mitigate the impact of recent welfare reforms. GB wide, DWP funding in 2013-2014 is £180m and planned funding in 2014-15 is £165m.
- Legislation limits the expenditure on DHPs to 2.5 times the DWP allocation. This allows councils to “top-up” their allocations by up to 1.5 times from their own funds.
- The Scottish Government has provided £20m to councils in 2013-14 to allow them to top up to just below the maximum permitted by legislation, and by £22.8m in 2014-15 to allow councils to top up to the maximum permitted by legislation.
- In 2013-14, total Scottish DHP funding is £36.3m which may increase slightly when the DWP makes decisions on all bids received from councils for a share of “reserve” funding it has made available. Total Scottish funding in 2014-15 is £38m.
- The Scottish Government has written to the DWP asking for the legislative cap on DHP expenditure to be lifted to allow them to provide an additional £12m DHP funding. If the DWP does not lift the cap, the Scottish Government has committed to use £12m in other ways to ensure that tenants in arrears, solely because of the bedroom tax, are not evicted.
- Councils have been dealing with substantial increases in applications for DHPs which has caused additional administrative costs. Much of the additional demand for DHPs has come from tenants affected by the bedroom tax, although some councils have indicated that there is still a substantial group of tenants affected by the bedroom tax, and who may be building up arrears, who have not applied for a DHP.
- The level of discretion available to councils has led to some concern that a “postcode lottery” is developing. The UK Parliament’s Scottish Affairs Committee recommended that complete discretion “…should be replaced by a standard entitlement structure, to apply across the whole of the United Kingdom, above which local authorities would be free to move, taking account of local circumstances.”
- Concern has also been expressed about the longer term future for DHPs. Although the UK Government has indicated that there will be £40m within the DHP allocations in 2015-16 to help mitigate the bedroom tax it is not clear what will happen to funding beyond this point.
- CEC has worked with tenants over the years to try to ensure tenants are not evicted for rent arrears and as long as a tenant can be shown to be trying to alleviate the issue there will be no eviction.
- People are also aware the Scottish Government have stated that in the event of gaining Independence that they will abolish the Bedroom Tax. This may convince people that it doesn’t matter, however, if there are rent arrears people can still be evicted. Things
Welfare Reform Teams have been set up to identify customers. This work has included going round houses and chapping on doors. However, for every 20 doors, 1 person answered.
CEC SLAB funding to ensure advice is out there for people. Many organisations got money to provide extra resource and information and support services. CABs in particular are now operating 5 days a week. By April 2014 DWP expected 1 million to be on UC only 5500 so far. No IT system that can cope with it. Scaling it up nationally is a huge challenge. The principle of Universal Credit is fine but reality very different. The Forth and Inverleith area seems to tap into CAB & the Granton Information Centre.
The Scottish Welfare Fund was the Social Fund. Scottish Government took the view to have Scottish system administered by Local Authorities who all work under the same set of rules, unlike LA’s in England who all have their own rules and systems. There are three levels: Low/Medium/High. Initially the focus was on identifying and awarding payments to High level of need but it became obvious that the budget wasn't being spent. Therefore a decision was made to change priorities down to medium & low need however, due to the issues mentioned there are still funds available. The Welfare Team have promoted this fund as much as possible and aredoing their utmost to ensure applications are processed as soon as possible, claims over the phone can result in a decision there & then. Set up partnership with Bethany whereby a person is assessed and directed to Bethany to choose what they need, CEC then pay Bethany for any goods received. This contract with Bethany ended in March. Once a new provider has been decided upon Alan shall inform JD who shall inform the Forum.
Strong partnership working has been achieved which has included; Job centre plus, which has worked really well and has resulted in joint bids for funding etc. NHS Lothian is an important partnership. Many people would rather approach their GP than the Council. Employability projects are also involved, the Government are focussing on what people can do rather than what they can't.
An impact study was carried out by a Housing Association which showed 90% wanted payments to be made direct to landlords. 30-50% could not manage payment of rent on their ownDWP has never dealt with rent side of things. Findings showed that 90%+ paid their rent.
PIP
Taking over from DLA taking too long for people to be assessed.
DHP
The Welfare Team and others continuing to promote it & encourage take up. Tenants need to apply and CEC doing everything they canto ensure all who qualify are taking it up.
Alan will pass on info on how to apply etc to be circulated to forum members
UC is a huge task, principal is good but practically it's very, very difficult.New claimants are not being put on UC at the moment.
KW thanked Alan for his extremely helpful and informative presentation and discussion. Alan can be contacted direct by email:
ELAINE LENNON & JIM PATTISON SfC – LOCAL COMMUNITY PLAN DRAFT PRIOROTIES FOR FORTH AND INVERLEITH NEIGHBIURHOOD PARTNERSHIP
LCP Draft Priorities identified through consultation:
Inverleith
Consultation was carried out over the last year. Consultation and engagement with the community was carried out through various events, which included Community Council meetings, health event, open days & online surveys. Findings were collated and things raised that were not about partnership were removed and priorities were considered that could be tackled through partnership working.
Once priorities are approved the next step is to decide how to take things forward, which shall include looking at the Priority Groups (Subgroups) and deciding if this is the most effective structure moving forward.
Identified Priorities:
- Increase Opportunities for All Ages to Participate in Physical Activity
- Encourage Walking and Cycling to School
- Positively Engage Young people
- Encourage better community use of local green spaces
Forth Neighbourhood Partnership followed a very similar process which created an opportunity to identify a few partnership opportunities to work with.
Identified Priorities:
- Increase Opportunities for all to live healthy lifestyles
- Improve employment opportunities – with a particular focus on young people
- Positively engage and support young people
- Improve the way we engage with and support our communities
This is an opportunity for Forum members to engage if they feel they haven’t already done so. This was welcomed by the Forum members. Comments should be forwarded before 26th August deadline . The priorities presented today are not final it's all part of process.
Jim and Elaine confirmed that working groups were suspended last year. Once agreement is reached regarding the priorities, discussions shall take place on what is the best mechanisms to put in place to achieve the priorities set out, this may be focus groups. At the moment, there are no plans to reconvene the previous subgroups.
The meeting discussed the issues of communication (two-way) and the challenges we all face with regards to this. JD informed the meeting that she is in the process of working with Saty Kaur, Senior Partnership and Communications Officer, with a view to compiling a comprehensive calendar of all NP meetings. This will allow JD to revisit the dates the local VSFs meet. It’s hoped that a more efficient and effective cycle of meetings take place, which should enable the Forum to meet the month before a NP meeting is taking place to allow time for any Agenda Items the Forum would like added to the NP Meeting Agenda. This is in the hope that the two-way communication channels can become more effective and efficient, ensuring some consistency with information sharing. Some attendees made comment that the Health and Social Care Subgroup was very good, however, others commented that there was divided opinion and some did not find the group useful and after a strong start this group seemed to tail off. JP suggested putting these ideas forward as a Forum or as individuals to the Neighbourhood Partnership Team. KW thanked JP & EL for their information and attendance at the Forum.
INFORMATION EXCHANGE
Pilton Equalities Project -
HT was delighted to inform the group that funds had been raised for 2 new minibuses through funding streams and fundraising activities. The Forum members were delighted to hear this good news.
PEP’s block contract willcease and will revert back to grants. Each grant needs to be under £100,000 therefore HT has to find ways of integrating projects to reduce the number of grant applications.HT felt that the health & social care group would have been very valuable at the moment.
Freshstart -
SG informed the meeting that Freshstart are currently working in partnership with EVOC’s Financial Inclusion Team offering one to one work on budgeting and income maximisation. More classes are being run at Ferry Road Drive. Freshstart expect a decision regarding their Investor In Volunteers award in October.
Lifecare -
DM informed the meeting that Lifecare continuing with day services for frail elderly people and those suffering from dementia. Outreach care to the community is being developed. Fairly new but continuing & developing. DM also informed the meeting with regards to the Almanor For Merchants which provide grants of £500 pa for Edinburgh people who have modest means and who are over 55. The application process is a simple one. KW asked if referrals could be made, DM confirmed that yes they can. The hope is that the grant improves quality of life; referrals could be made on behalf of volunteers and older people to help with heating bills. The office is based on Hanover Street and has been operating since the 1600s doing a wide variety of things and at the moment is working in partnership with Dunedin Canmore, sheltered housing at Liberton. The amount is a standard one off payment of £500 per annum. More details can be found here:
Pilton Community Health Project -
JR informed the meeting that the summer programme is coming to an end. The Forum is still running. A lot of time working with NHS integrated funding plan and an Action Plan has been completed, can see clearly what everyone is doing. Members of the Forum expressed a real interest in seeing the document, Jen shall circulate JR felt it was a very positive exercise and experience. PCHP website under developmentNorth West Carers -
AD introduced herself and explained that she is new in post and is hoping that she can give a more comprehensive update at the next Forum meeting and that she would appreciate the opportunity to meet one to one with people.