Terms & Conditions

[Jules]

Due to a reorganisation of our LA, the Welfare Rights Service has been placed under the management of the Housing Benefit department. This has led to some discussion about whether their impartiality has been affected.

The idea is that we continue to work as before and that the WRS is treated no differently to any other advice organisation when their queries are dealt with. However, we would like to have some sort of agreement in place between both sections so that the impartiality of the services is clear and I’ve been asked to liaise with Welfare Rights to put something together.

I know that some other LAs work in the same way and wondered if anyone had an agreement that I could look at (such as a statement of independence or a Service Level Agreement). This would be really useful as it would give me a starting point.

If anyone has any information or experiences I’d be really grateful.

Thanks

Julie.cebulski@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

[Anonymous]

It isn’t exactly your arrangement but we have a joint working agreement with our County Council WRU whereby we employ a joint worker who is situated in our offices and works directly on our benefit take-up team and also does all other normal duties of a WRO for our district customers.

It works extremely well and has made working arrangments between our organisations more streamlined. We have an SLA with the other organisation which I would be happy to let you have if you think it would be of help although it may not cover all your potential issues.

My email address is s.davis@derwentside.gov.uk

[Anonymous]

For some reason I had the idea that Greenwich runs a Benefits directorate covering HB, school meals, education benefits and welfare rights advice. Their website is certainly structured that way so it might be worth contacting someone at Greenwich. I’m afraid I don’t know anyone who works there.

[Jules]

Thanks for that Peter. I’ll try to contact someone there.

[Author]

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