Report of the Review of Advice Services in Manchester Task and Finish Group

This report presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Review of Advice Services in Manchester Task and Finish Group. The Task and Finish Group was established to consider the availability of advice services across the city, with a view to producing recommendations to be

considered in the budget in the next financial year.

The Committee received a report of the Review of Advice Services in Manchester Task and Finish Group which presented the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Review of Advice Services in Manchester Task and Finish Group. The Task and Finish Group had been established to consider the availability of advice services across the city, with a view to producing recommendations to be considered in the budget in the next financial year.

The Executive Member for Adult Health and Wellbeing thanked the Members of the Task and Finish Group and other stakeholders who had contributed to this work, advising that it had been a helpful process and that the recommendations were useful and achievable.  She proposed that, if the Committee endorsed the recommendations in the report, she and relevant officers could bring a report to a future meeting which outlined their response to the recommendations.  She informed Members of work which had already commenced in relation to the recommendations, including work to provide ward-level information on available advice services, work to provide additional training for frontline staff, including library staff, discussions taking place with Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and consideration of options for out of hours advice provision.  She also informed the Committee about resources for and work to improve the provision of advice services in relation to homelessness and the prevention of homelessness and also for asylum seekers, refugees and people with no recourse to public funds.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• Request for more information on proposals for out of hours advice provision, noting that if telephone advice was to be made available through libraries, privacy was important;
• That RSLs should have a greater input, including a financial contribution, to the provision of advice services and a suggestion that RSLs could commission the Council to provide advice services, noting that the Executive Member for Adult Health and Wellbeing agreed to raise this through the Housing Providers Forum;
• The importance of having a pro-active approach to addressing debt, for example improving people’s understanding of interest rates and raising awareness of issues relating to rent-to-own companies such as BrightHouse which charged high interest rates to low-income families;
• That this work should include consideration of the role RSLs could play in early intervention and that this could include a standard approach to providing support to tenants who were falling behind in their rent; and
• Concern that some tenants in overcrowded accommodation were de-prioritised for alternative accommodation because of their rent arrears and to ask that consideration be given to how households in this situation could be helped.

Decisions

1.            To note the findings of the Task and Finish Group and endorse the recommendations as set out in the report.

2.            To submit the recommendations to the Executive Member for Adult Health and Wellbeing and the recently-established multi agency Advice Forum for their consideration.

3.            To request that the Committee receive a report in approximately six months’ time which updates Members on actions being taken in response to the recommendations.

4.            To request that the Executive Member for Adult Health and Wellbeing additionally consider the issues that Members have raised at this meeting and that a response to these also be included in the report.