Coventry Independent Advice Service is a registered charity (no. 1015216) and a

company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 2761115)

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Contents Welcome from our Chair and Director of Advice Services ..................................................................... 5

Our key objectives................................................................................................................................... 6

Our staff team during 2014/15 ............................................................................................................... 6

Our management committee ................................................................................................................. 7

Our partners ............................................................................................................................................ 7

Notes on our finances ............................................................................................................................. 7

Our current advice service delivery ........................................................................................................ 9

Outputs and impact .............................................................................................................................. 11

We need your support! ......................................................................................................................... 19

Accounts for financial year 2014/2015 ................................................................................................. 21

Our new website ................................................................................................................................... 31

Pictures, charts and graphs

Figure 1 - Our new office base at Oakwood House ................................................................................ 8

Figure 2 - Current service delivery schedule ........................................................................................... 9

Figure 3 – Number of people helped .................................................................................................... 11

Figure 4 – New client issues .................................................................................................................. 12

Figure 5 – Financial gains ...................................................................................................................... 12

Figure 6 - Breakdown of benefit enquiries ........................................................................................... 13

Figure 7 – Household type .................................................................................................................... 13

Figure 8 – Employment status .............................................................................................................. 14

Figure 9 – Housing tenure ..................................................................................................................... 15

Figure 10 – Income type ....................................................................................................................... 15

Figure 11 - Gender ................................................................................................................................ 16

Figure 12 – Age group ........................................................................................................................... 17

Figure 13 - Ethnicity .............................................................................................................................. 18

Figure 14 - Our new office signage ....................................................................................................... 19

Figure 15 - Website home page ............................................................................................................ 31

Figure 16 - Interactive 'drop-in' calendar on our new website ............................................................ 31

: www.covadvice.org.uk

: info@covadvice.org.uk

: 024 7652 1100

: Oakwood House, Cheylesmore,

Coventry CV1 2HL

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Welcome from our Chair and Director of Advice Services At our last annual general meeting, Wood End Advice and Information Service fully rebranded as Coventry Independent Advice Service and began the process of transition to a new service, serving the whole of Coventry and its diverse communities. This annual report celebrates the final year of the services operations based in Wood End and looks to the future of our new service for all Coventry residents. Keen followers will remember that a decision was made during 2014 to integrate existing neighbourhood advice delivery in the city under the umbrella of Coventry Independent Advice Services. This was in response to a Coventry City Council review which indicated that a city-wide neighbourhood based service would be the preferable model of delivery, rather than a focus on individual neighbourhoods. The plan was to bring together advice given by Holbrooks Community Care Association, Willenhall Advice Centre and Wood End Advice and Information Centre under this new name and for the service to expand across the city. Initially, it was hoped that this ‘merger’ or ‘transition’ would take place in January 2015. However, following a review we undertook late in 2014, it was agreed to delay the full integration until the start of the next financial year. This made sense both operationally and strategically; giving time for staff to be fully consulted, for office closures and moves to take place and for other practical issues to be resolved. Not least among these was the late change to the location of the new office base. Having spent some considerable time looking for suitable premises, we were approached by Coventry Cyrenians with an offer to share their premises at Oakwood House in the city centre. This enabled us to move into serviced offices, thereby minimising our relocation costs and ongoing overheads. Strategically this move now places Coventry Independent Advice Service right at the heart of the city and in close proximity to Jobcentre Plus, Coventry Law Centre, Coventry Citizens Advice Bureau and the City Council. Our relationships with all these organisations will help to develop new partnership projects that will be beneficial for the people of Coventry. The skills and commitment of our staff are fundamental in achieving our desire to provide quality services and our thanks go to everyone who has been employed by Coventry Independent Advice Service over the past year. This commitment was especially evident during the latter part of 2014 and the first few months of 2015 when we were going through the TUPE process and the process of moving out of existing premises. This was a difficult time for all of the team but everyone pulled together in order to make the process a success. Critical to the whole merger process was the recruitment of a Director of Advice Services. Alan Markey joined us in November 2014. With an extensive background in the advice service sector, Alan has expertly guided the organisation to the stable position we find ourselves in today.

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Also critical to our success has been the support of the partner agencies who have agreed to host our outreach services (see below). We are now delivering drop-in advice services (no appointment needed) in nine areas of the city (see page 9) with plans to expand our services into more communities during the coming year. These drop-in sessions are backed up by appointment slots in all areas, and at our office base, so that we can devote time to more in-depth cases. In early 2015 the Trustee Board held a strategic planning event in order to start the process of thinking about what the new service wants to achieve and where we want to be in the future. This was a very useful session that we intend to revisit and build on over the coming year with the intention of developing a service strategy for the next three to five years.

Our key objectives

Central to our objectives is to place our clients, service users and partners at the centre of

what we do and to ensure the continued delivery of high quality services when people need

us. We can summarise our key objectives as:

To continually develop and improve advice services for our clients and communities

To support and develop our staff and volunteers to be the best they can be

To increase engagement with our existing community partners and to develop new

strategic partnerships

To deliver planned activity within agreed expenditure budgets

To diversify the sources of our funding and ensure our long-term financial stability

Our staff team during 2014/15

Sharan Chhonker

Amanda Craig (from Jan 2015)

Andy Crampton (from Jan 2015)

Uzoamaka Edokpolo

Michael Gilday (to Jan 2015)

Diane Goolding (from Feb 2015)

Norman Hendry (from Jan 2015)

Pam Junday (from Jan 2015)

Rosie Keenan (from Feb 2015)

Magdalena Kolinska

Karolina Kwiatkowska

Alan Markey (from Nov 2014)

Gordon Payne (from Jan 2015)

Alina Pedcenko (from Jan 2015)

Patsy Staple (to Mar 2015)

Over the course of the year we had seven volunteers working with the service. Of those seven, we know that at least four went on to find paid employment elsewhere. We estimate that the time these volunteers spent with us adds a value of around £40,000 to the service.1 Thank you to all those volunteers, past and present, that have made such a valuable contribution to our service.

1 Using Coventry City council’s formula, 3054 volunteer hours at £13 per hour = £39,702.00

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Our management committee For 2014/2015, each of the centres that came together to form Coventry Independent Advice Service appointed three members to the new board (nine in total). Three additional board members were elected from the floor at last year’s AGM. It was agreed that this method of appointment would apply for the first year of the new organisation structure only and, in future, all board members must be elected by the membership. The chair, vice-chair and treasurer posts are elected by the board from its own membership. Details of our management committee during 2014/2015 can be found in our financial statement for the year ended 31 March 2015. The board would like to thank all those who have worked so hard to help bring Coventry Independent Advice Service together and we look forward to building relationships with any new members of the team who join us in the future.

Our partners We would like to offer enormous thanks to all of our partner agencies who are providing premises and other resources to help us to deliver our essential advice services. These include:

Bell Green library

Canley Children’s Centre

Coventry City Council

Coventry Cyrenians

Coventry Sports Trust

Foleshill Children’s Centre

Hagard Community Centre, Willenhall

Holbrooks Community Care Association

Moat House Trust, Wood End

Spon Gate Children’s Centre

St Peter’s Centre, Hillfields

Tile Hill Children’s Centre

Notes on our finances

Our full financial report for 2014/15 appears at the end of this report. It should be noted

that this only relates to the activity of Wood End Advice and Information Centre during the

financial year. The finances of our partner agencies, Holbrooks Community Care Association

and Willenhall Advice Centre, are still reported separately over this period and so our

accounts only represent one part of the new combined entity.

During the 2014/15 financial year, a surplus of funds of £4,457 was achieved (£-10,504 in

2013/14) taking the cumulative funds carried forward to £11,376 (£6,919 in 2013/14).

Salaries (including National Insurance and Pensions) accounted for 65% of our total

expenditure.

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Coventry City Council are currently reviewing their funding of the charity and not-for-profit

sector. Having met the objectives laid out in the 2013 Advice Review paper, the trustees are

cautiously optimistic that Coventry Independent Advice Service will be treated favourably

during this review.

It is worth noting that Coventry City Council funding represented 94% of our total income in

2014/15. The future financial stability of Coventry Independent Advice Service will be

assured by having a greater diversity of funding partners. This can be achieved through

partnership projects with other agencies to deliver vital services to the city. Furthermore,

the erratic nature of funding payments needs to be mitigated by ensuring that CIAS

maintains unrestricted reserves equal to around three months of normal expenditure.

We hope you find this report helpful and informative. If you would like to find out more

about our work, you can visit our newly redesigned website at www.covadvice.org.uk. You

can also follow us on Twitter (@covadvice) and find us on Facebook.

Gavin Kibble Alan Markey

Chair of Trustee Board Director of Advice Services

Figure 1 - Our new office base at Oakwood House

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Our current advice service delivery

Figure 2 - Current service delivery schedule

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Outputs and impact On the next few pages we break down some of the other statistical data from the past year. Of course, numbers only tell party of the story and so we have also included some real case studies (made anonymous of course) to give a better indication of the value of the work we do, the difference we have helped to make to people’s lives and our contribution to the fight against poverty in the city. The following statistical reports only cover the services that were delivered under the auspices of Wood End Advice and Information Centre during 2014/2015. Our partner agencies, Holbrooks Community Care Association and Willenhall Advice Centre, reported separately over this period and so their statistics are not included here. In future years we will report on enquiries received from across the city.

Figure 3 – Number of people helped

Between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2015, nearly 2300 people came through the doors of the Wood End advice centre. Of those people, nearly 1400 were given detailed advice. The remaining enquirers were given information, signposted to other appropriate services or otherwise assisted. It is quite normal for people to seek advice on more than one issue. In 2014/15, the people who were given detailed advice brought a total of 1610 issues with them (an average of 1.17 per person). Of those issues, 58% were about welfare benefits, 22% were about debt or money advice and the rest covered other matters including housing, consumer and employment issues.

363 362 331 319

211 247224 231

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

1 2 3 4

Number of people helped, 2014/15 by quarter

People receiving advice People receiving info only

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Figure 4 – New client issues

Enquiries about welfare benefits remained steady throughout the year while there was a downward trend for enquiries where the main presenting problem was debt or other matters. In many cases, however, financial difficulties are part of the overall enquiry.

Figure 5 – Financial gains

One key measure of our success is the amount of additional income received by clients as a direct result of our intervention. Not all clients report the outcome of their case to us, of course, but our statistics show that at least £493,366.65 was gained during 2014/15. As most of our clients tend to spend most of their money locally, we estimate (conservatively) that this is worth around £1.1 million to the local economy.2 2 We estimate that at least 80% of money received by local residents is spent in local businesses who, in turn, spend around 40% of that income locally. This means that every £1 spent is worth £2.20 to the local economy. For more information, see New Economics Foundation (2002), ‘The Money Trail’, at http://bit.ly/1CwQJG7

240

205

251233

135

87

63 67

137

97

41 54

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1 2 3 4

New client issues, 2014/15 by quarter

No of Welfare Benefit issues No of debt issues No of other issues

Charitable grants, £34,061.48

Additional benefits, £453,566.66

Compensation awards, £5,738.51

Financial gains, 2014/15

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Figure 6 - Breakdown of benefit enquiries

Figure 7 – Household type

Benefit check

7%

Bereavement Benefits1%

Carers Allowance3%

Child Benefit3%

Council Tax Benefit1%

Disability Living Allowance

7%

Employment & Support Allowance

19%

Health Benefits1%

Housing Benefit

9%

Income Support1%

JSA (contributory)3%

JSA (income based)4%

Pension Credit1%

Personal Independent Payment

29%

Retirement Pension1%

Social Fund2%

Tax Credits8%

Benefit enquiry by type, 2014/15

Couple with children

16%

Couple no children

17%

single41%

lone parents23%

unknown3%

Client household type, 2014/15

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Figure 8 – Employment status

The employment status chart above shows that 28% of our clients were in paid work or self-employed. In November 2014, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported that insecure, low-paid jobs are leaving record numbers of working families in poverty3 and increasing use of zero-hours contracts and insecure, temporary jobs are only making the situation worse.

3 The Guardian (2014) ‘Record numbers of working families in poverty due to low-paid jobs’, at http://bit.ly/1qYHJUx

full time 16%

part time11%

unemployed18%

long term sick 31%

self employed1%

carer10%

student1%

retired9%

other1%

not recorded2%

Client employment status, 2014/15

Ms J needed help due to money issues. She had some priority debts including rent arrears, Council Tax arrears and fuel debt. Some of these debts were already at a late stage of recovery action and she was being threatened with eviction. We helped her with an application for a Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) and helped to negotiate with her creditors (including preventing them from taking further action and setting up affordable payment arrangements). Ms J was awarded a DHP which cleared her rent arrears (over £1000) and sustainable payment plans were set with all of her creditors. She also received general advice on money management and budgeting as part of the advice process.

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Figure 9 – Housing tenure

Figure 10 – Income type

Owner12%

Private rented19% Social housing

55%

living with others10%

homeless1%

Sheltered0%

not known3%

Client housing tenure, 2014/15

wages / salary only12%

benefits only47%

benefit top up on wage/salary

18%

pension8%

destitute / no recourse

0%

not recorded15%

Client income type, 2014/15

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Figure 11 - Gender

As in previous years, nearly 60% of our clients are women. There are concerns that the introduction of Universal Credit may create further gender issues due in part to the fact that a single payment will come into the household to cover all expenses and will often be paid to the main claimant.4

4 The Independent (2015) ‘Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms are disproportionately hurting women, report finds’, at http://ind.pn/1H6bEeH

Male41%

Female59%

Client gender, 2014/15

Mr K is married with four dependent children, one of whom is disabled. He had approached us for advice as the family were struggling to make ends meet. We carried out a routine benefit calculation and it became clear that Housing Benefit was not meeting the full rental cost of the families four-bedroomed property. On further investigation we realised that the ‘bedroom tax’ had been applied and the family were only having the three-bedroom Local Housing Allowance rate applied to their Housing Benefit claim. As their disabled son was unable to share a room with another sibling, due the nature of their disability, we helped Mr K to challenge the decision. Housing Benefit agreed that the restriction should not apply, in light of the circumstances, and agreed to pay arrears of Housing Benefit from the date Mr K and his family moved in to the property. This resulted in an increased award of £43 per week and arrears of benefit totalling over £5000. This enabled the family to meet the full costs of the housing they needed and to release some of the stress and hardship they had been experiencing.

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Figure 12 – Age group

Of the people we helped last year, the largest group (25%) were aged 45-54. 7% were under 25 and 9% were over 65. While older people have been largely protected from many of the impacts of the governments welfare reforms, people of working age have borne much of the cost.

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84

210

294

343

264

96

222

44

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

under 16years

16-24 25 - 34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75-84 85+ Age notrecorded

Client age group, 2014/15

Mr K, a married man with a young son, came to us for help as his award of the high rate mobility component of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) had been removed following transfer to personal independence payment (PIP). He has significant disabilities and, as a result of losing the mobility component, he had to return his Motability car. This was causing the family some difficulty and distress as he cannot get out on his own and also needs to take his son to pre-school. His only alternative was a wheelchair but it is difficult for his wife to push him any distance. We helped him to challenge the PIP decision but, as appeals can take a long time to process, we also helped him to apply to Coventry General Charities for help towards buying an electric scooter which would give him some independence in the meantime. Because he had to return his car he was given £250.00 by the Motability scheme and Coventry General Charities also awarded him £500.00 towards the cost. Friends and family helped him to raise the rest of the money. Two months later, DWP reconsidered the PIP decision and awarded him the enhanced rate mobility component along with enhanced rate daily living component. This meant the family were over £3000 a year better off but, more importantly, he was able to apply again to the Motability scheme which allowed him to fully regain his independence.

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Figure 13 - Ethnicity

Poverty and ethnicity are strongly related, with poverty higher among all ethnic minority groups than among white British people in the UK, but the links are complex and not well understood.5 Coventry is a diverse city and the statistics on the ethnicity of our clients reflects this. We are very proud that our service is seen as accessible to a wide cross-section of the community.

5 Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2014) ‘Tackling poverty across all ethnicities in the UK’, at http://bit.ly/1OwgzPj

White British 61%

White Irish3%

White European9%

Asian/Asian British4%

African8%

Caribbean2%

Mixed background1%

Other9%

Unrecorded3%

Client ethnicity, 2014/15

Ms Y is an EEA citizen with three dependent children. She arrived in UK in May 2014 and started work in July 2014. We helped her to claim child benefit and tax credits but she was told she was not entitled to either benefit as she did not have ‘worker status’ and so did not have a right to reside in the UK. We challenged the decision of HMRC and child benefit based on the fact that the client had worker status because she was in genuine and effective employment when she first made her claim. The Child benefit decision was reversed and backdated – she received £3,909.60 in arrears. We are waiting for the Tax Credits decision.

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We need your support!

Coventry Independent Advice Service is a registered

charity. As a charity we rely on external funding,

donations and other forms of support. In these times

of increasing austerity, secure funding is even harder to

find and so we also need your help so that we can

continue to support our community. This help can be

financial but you can also offer to do some voluntary

work with us or join our board.

If you are able to make a donation to the service, however small, this will be used to help

develop our services further and to help us to combat poverty in the city. To do this you can

text CIAS15, followed by the amount of your donation, to 70070. For example:

To donate £2, text CIAS15 £2

To donate £5, text CIAS15 £5

To donate £10, text CIAS15 £10

There are many other ways that you may be able to help us, such as by setting up a regular

donation or volunteering. If you would like to find out more about how you can support us,

please get in touch by emailing info@covadvice.org.uk or telephone 024 7652 1100.

Figure 14 - Our new office signage

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Accounts for financial year 2014/2015

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Our new website

Figure 15 - Website home page

Figure 16 - Interactive 'drop-in' calendar on our new website

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Coventry Independent Advice Service offers welfare benefits and debt/money advice

to people living in Coventry. Our service is delivered from outreach venues across the

city. We are members of AdviceUK and our advisers are accredited by the Institute of

Money Advisers. Our aim is combating poverty within some of the most

disadvantaged communities in England.

We are a registered charity (no. 1015216) and a company limited by guarantee

registered in England and Wales (no. 2761115)

: www.covadvice.org.uk

: info@covadvice.org.uk

: 024 7652 1100

: Oakwood House, Cheylesmore, Coventry CV1 2HL

6 Who Benefits? (2014) ‘’Second class citizens’? The personal impact of the public debate on benefits’,

at http://bit.ly/1OII3AT