Cash lifeline for Pendle welfare rights groups (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Cash lifeline for Pendle welfare rights groups

4:37pm Thursday 18th February 2010 in

By Peter Magill » Chief reporter

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A CASH lifeline has been thrown to welfare rights campaigners in Pendle — but council bosses have warned that savings must be made over the next 12 months.

Talks have been talking place between the main party leaders and senior councillors in the borough over the future funding of Pendle Citizens’ Advice Bureau, the Pendle Pakistan Welfare Association (PPWA) and community development trust Ithaad.

All three organisations had been told that the £160,000 budget for advice services could be facing a £25,000 cut.

But the money has been found under the Working Neighbourhoods Fund, with the CAB known to provide training and development opportunities for volunteers.

Coun Tony Greaves, who has chaired a review group into advice services funding, said: “The work which the CAB does feed well into the Working Neighbourhoods Fund with a little bit of tweaking.

“Volunteer advisors are provided with skills and very often find work as a result of the training which they receive.

“But we have made it clear to the three organisations that, due to the financial circumstances affecting local government, it might not be possible to do this in 12 months time and that they need to make savings.”

The decision, expected to be ratified at a full council budget meeting next week, provides welcome respite for the CAB in East Lancashire, which has seen prospective cuts of £75,000 in Burnley and £25,000 in Rossendale, from town hall coffers.

Councillors have asked officials at the three groups to liaise with the authority’s benefits service provider Liberata, to develop closer ties over state allowances and entitlements.

The possibility of establishing a Pennine Lancashire wide welfare rights advice service will also be explored during the coming year.

While the CAB has offices in Nelson, Colne and Barnoldswick, the PPWA is based in Market Square, Nelson, and Ithaad in nearby Cross Street.

Comments(5)

Davidoff says...
4:49pm Thu 18 Feb 10

Doesn't anyone get it yet or worked it out yet? CABs have closed down throughout the UK over time. Thus diminishing the ordinary person's access to free welfare rights advice. But no one's worked out yet why? Is it because our government would like to prevent those who can't afford to access a solicitor or pay for advice from having the right to access free welfare rights advice ... then it's easier for the government to push those people around because they then cannot get the protection they once could through the free advice services? Always the most vulnerable, though, in this country who suffer the worst and the first isn't it? If not, why are such places struggling for cash and particularly in the NW. Why do we see closed CABs, empty shops fronts where advice services once were (I've even seen one replaced with a loan shark pay day service right where a free centre was; exactly the reason welfare rights and CAB should exist for!). It would seem that everywhere you look a free advice service has closed that is a vital service to people in the areas concerned.

I think the simple answer is that MPs don't want ordinary people to get welfare advice. If they did, why do they need to talk about something that should be obvious? A need for such places is a given in this country. Why aren't they?