At Citizens Advice Somerset we see thousands of people every year, and we have a more detailed understanding of the problems that people experience than any other organisation.
We know which policies are working and spot emerging problems early. In our policy research we combine these insights with analysis of the wider social and economic trends affecting everyone in Somerset, we set out new ideas to improve policy and campaign for change.
Our local campaigning
Our Research and Campaign team meet regularly to review the key issues faced by people in Somerset and the unfairness that has been experienced. This data is then used to lobby MPs, councilors, the local authority, and others, as well as presenting our findings in the media and taking part in awareness raising activities.
In the last year we have campaigned locally on issues such as:
- Social housing flooring lottery – campaigning to change the policy of social and council housing providers ripping out flooring before new tenants move in. You can read our report Somerset’s Flooring Lottery which was presented to the council and directors of all Somerset social housing providers – they have agreed to take action and we look forward to working with them to revise this policy.
- Council Tax Reduction consultation – to demonstrate the huge impact of the proposed changes to disabled and lower income households
- Pension Credit take-up – to mitigate the effects of the changes to Winter Fuel payment eligibility
- Cost of living issues – regularly sharing our cost of living dashboards with key partners to demonstrate the impact of the crisis affecting people in Somerset
- Scams awareness – to raise awareness of new scams and what to do if you’re worried
- Big Energy Saving Week – sharing information and advice to help people manage their energy bills
Want to know what Research & Campaign issues are concerning us or what we’ve been up to?
Our quarterly newsletter provides a regular insight into the key policy issues and our advocacy work.
The national Citizens Advice team collate the data and identify the trends across the country. This is shared in a variety of ways such as interactive reports and virtual events. You can see our map of the negative budget rate by constituency here, and you can see more of our data insights in our Cost of Living dashboard.
Data Insight events
April 29th – the hardships of poverty mean for children
A huge thank you to the speakers, particularly to Sophie for sharing her personal experiences of growing up in poverty so powerfully.
If you missed the session you can watch it back, and you can view the data slides.
The next Data Insights event is a ‘Spotlight on Disability‘ on Thursday 26th June, 2-3pm – click the image below to sign up.
Disabled people are struggling. Access to disability benefits is our largest single advice area, and our disabled clients are among those needing most support with cost-of-living issues.
In this context, the government’s proposals for restricting eligibility for disability and incapacity benefits, and cutting incapacity benefit payments, will cause significant hardship for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. By their own admission, hundreds of thousands of disabled people will be sent into poverty, and many more already poverty will be pushed deeper into destitution.
Child poverty will increase too as disabled parents are set to be among the hardest hit, and there is little prospect of income from employment replacing lost benefits income in the near future.
The data insights event will be an opportunity to think through the possible impact of cuts and wider reforms ahead of the main parliamentary stages and the deadline for green paper consultation responses.
Join Dame Claire Moriarty, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, Tom Pollard, Head of Social Policy at the New Economics Foundation, and Tom McInnes, Interim Director of Policy at Citizens Advice as they examine how cuts to disability benefits are expected to pull hundreds of thousands of disabled people into poverty.
Want to catch up on a previous event? We’ve put all our recordings in one place.
Somerset policy and campaign successes
Over the years we have had many successes with our campaign work, including;
- Launched an ‘ESA have your say’ campaign (which went national) to challenge the quality of ESA work capability assessments – our evidence was used in the House of Lords,
- Hosted a Somerset Welfare Rights conference to raise awareness of welfare reform and best practice in advice work,
- Developed vulnerable person policies with local statutory services to reduce the risk of harm to vulnerable customers,
- Contributed to improvements to the discharge policy for people leaving mental health hospital care, reducing the likelihood of readmission,
- Responding to the annual consultation of Homefinder Somerset lettings policy which improved access to housing.
National campaign work
Each local Citizens Advice office sends information about the problems brought to them (no client information is shared) to National Citizens Advice.
This evidence is collated to help campaign officers identify national trends. Citizens Advice can then present evidence to policy makers by writing reports and submissions and participating in consultations to improve policies.
More information on our national campaigning can be found here.
