Rushmoor CAB

All Citizens Advice Bureaux Campaign for Change. We call this Social Policy work.

At Rushmoor CAB, we believe that this part of our work is very important. If we can get laws, policies, or procedures changed, it can improve the situation of our clients and for the community as a whole.

We look at local and national issues, and we carry out Social Policy work in a number of ways.

If we come across something that we think is unfair, or needs changing, we send a report to Citizen Advice central office. They use this information to campaign for change in laws and national policies and services.
See: www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/campaigns

For 15 years Citizens Advice campaigned to protect deposits paid by private tenants. In April 2007, in a major Social Policy success, tenancy deposit protection law came into effect, which says that a deposit must be held by a independent third party. We are now trying to make sure that tenants are aware of their new rights.

We attend various local groups and meetings. We explain how policies and procedures affect our clients. This can have a major influence on how decisions are made.

The meetings we attend include:

Liaison meetings with Rushmoor Borough Council and Surrey Heath Borough Council.
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) Liaison meetings.
Adult Mental Health stakeholder meetings and local Mental Health forums.
Rushmoor Homelessness Forum.

We have met with both of our local MPs. Sometimes we work with them to resolve problems for individual clients. We also ask them to help influence national organisations.

We were involved in the setting up of the new Well Being Centre, which is providing statutory and voluntary services for Mental Health service users. We have been invited to join the Centre’s Operational Group, which will help plan its future.

Social Policy Work continues in all three Bureaux. The issues we are especially involved in at the moment are:

The reform to sickness benefit and the introduction of Employment Support Allowance in October 2008. We will be monitoring the effect of these changes on our clients.
The impact of the introduction of Local Housing Allowance, which is replacing Housing Benefit for private tenants.
The Government’s proposal to reduce time for backdating of benefits. We are concerned that this could lead to eviction and homelessness.

Complaining directly to an organisation is one of the best ways of campaigning for change.

To help clients make complaints, we have added links to some specific organisations, and intend to add others as we deem appropriate. However, the first link Consumer Direct is operated by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in partnership with Local Authority Trading Standards, and offers general advice on how to make a complaint, including template letters.

British Gas under 'Reason why you are contacting us', select 'Comments & Complaints'.

Citizens Advice nationally actively encourages people to tell their stories. In two current campaigns it would like to hear about your experiences.

If you are interested, please follow these links:

End Child Poverty - tell us your story and help us hold the government to account on their promise to halve child poverty in Britain by 2010.

Dealing with debts yourself - tell us about your experience of dealing with your debt problems. Please do contact us if you would like more information about our social policy work, or if there are issues affecting you or your clients where you think we could help to bring about change.

We are also always keen to recruit volunteers interested in undertaking social policy work. Just contact us by phone, email or letter – details are on the volunteering section, or the contact pages for each bureau.

Aldershot CAB - Farnborough CAB - Heathlands CAB

CAMPAIGNING FOR CHANGE