Our enquirers provide us with a huge body of evidence on how services affect the lives of our poorest
and most vulnerable citizens. We use this unique resource to try to persuade organisations to change
their policies.
We also use our place on many of the City's partnerships to raise the issue of poverty and the
impact of services on our clients. When this succeeds, it helps prevent problems continuing to affect
people and helps the many people in the City who never visit us for advice.
We have:
- Continued to raise the plight of failed asylum seekers left destitute, with local
service providers, central Government and other national organisations
- Worked closely with the National Asylum Support Service to help them improve their
service to the local asylum seekers to reduce the pressure on hard pressed local services
- Raise the issue of a shortage of Lawyers in social welfare categories of law with
the Legal Services Commission
- Contributed to the City Council's Best Value review of its Housing Benefit Service.
- Contributed to the development of the City Council Housing Department’s homelessness
and allocations policies
- Reflected the concerns of our users about the impact of the closure of local Post
Offices with the Post Office
- Worked with Trading Standards and other local agencies to address the behaviour of certain
local credit companies
- Worked with local housing associations to improve their treatment of people in rent arrears
facing eviction
- Worked with other Bureaux and other national organisations to campaign for a change
in the law to allow people over 66 to claim help with mobility needs
- Persuaded the local DWP office to change how it deals with applications for crisis
loans and improve its service to young people
