2014-15 has been a busy year. Wealden

Citizens Advice (WCA) has worked

successfully in partnership with nine other

charities in the ‘Better Together’ project

funded by a grant from the National

Lottery. The project has enabled us to refer

clients to services that best meet their

needs. I want to thank our partners:

Brighton Housing Trust, Home Start East

Sussex, Age UK East Sussex, SEAP, East

Sussex Disability Alliance, Sussex

Community Development Association,

Hailsham Foodbank, Rotherfield St. Martin

and Clued-Up Info. for their enthusiasm

and commitment which has been pivotal to

the success of the project.

This has been a year of major operational

change brought about by the introduction

of new systems to enable the delivery of

advice by E-mail and Skype and also

through ADVICELINE, an interactive

telephone advice system. Our dedicated

staff and volunteers have been required to

undertake training and familiarisation with

the new systems. I want to thank all of

them for their continuing commitment to

delivering a quality service to our clients.

My special thanks go to our Supervisors

Ann Kates, Martha Mayes, Pauline

Townsend and Rosemary Wilson who do

an excellent job in ensuring the delivery of

a quality service to our clients.

This year we said goodbye to Caroline

Mack after eight successful years as our

Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Caroline

made an outstanding contribution to the

success of WCA during a difficult period

when our funding was reduced. She was

particularly adept in obtaining funding for

projects that enabled WCA to balance the

books during the economic downturn.

Caroline has taken up the post of CEO at

Croydon Citizens Advice and we wish her

well for the future.

I am very pleased to welcome Kay Birch as

our new CEO. Kay has previous

experience in Citizens Advice, but has

spent the majority of her career to date in

Government Service. She has brought an

excellent range of skills into the role. Kay is

very hard working and has made an

impressive start as CEO.

The Trustees are all volunteers who

generously give their time to direct WCA’s

affairs. They have a wide range of skills,

experience and knowledge that is essential

to provide the strategic direction required

to ensure that WCA remains a going

concern, is well-run and delivers a quality

service. I am grateful to all the Trustees for

their guidance and support. In particular, I

want to thank my predecessor, Dorothy

Goldman who worked very hard to lead the

Trustee Board for the last two demanding,

but very successful years.

We are fortunate to have the continuing

support of our principal funder, Wealden

District Council and the Town and Parish

Councils who together contribute almost all

of our core funding. We are grateful for this

vital financial support as it enables WCA to

continue to offer its much needed advice

services to clients throughout Wealden.

BOB JOHNSON

Chair of the Trustee Board

Chair’s Report

As Bob has said, this has been another

busy year for Wealden Citizens Advice,

where change and partnership have been

at the top of the agenda.

I must also pay tribute to my predecessor

Caroline Mack and to our outgoing District

Administrator Carolyne Smith as the

achievements listed here are due in no

small part to their dedication and

commitment to developing the service.

What about?

One of the real strengths of the Citizens

Advice service is that we offer advice on

just about anything and, if we cannot help,

we can usually find someone who can.

Although our service is open to all, those

who seek our help are 5 times more likely

to be living on a low income than the

general population and three times as

likely to be living with a long term health

condition or disability. This is reflected in

the issues on which clients sought help.

The impact of what we do

In addition to providing advice and

information our team of dedicated staff and

volunteers have been able to secure some

significant benefits for our clients.

A national survey undertaken by Citizens

Advice suggests we help people resolve 2

out of 3 problems and that 4 out of 5 clients feel less stressed as a result of the

help they receive.

What we do therefore has wider benefits,

for example:

It is likely that a good part of the

income we have helped generate for

clients will be spent locally.

There will be a reduction in cost for the

health service and statutory authorities

if we can help reduce stress and/or

enable someone to remain in their

home and/or in work.

33%

25%

8%

7%

6%

21%

Who have we helped?

We helped 4,131 people

with 20,884 issues.

99% of those who sought our help

were satisfied with the service they

received.

Benefits

Debt

Housing

Family /

Relationships

Employment

All Other

£2.4m in improved financial outcomes

for our clients, including £1.9m in

additional benefits and tax credits.

Helped clients manage £3.6m of debt

Helped 125 people at imminent risk of

homelessness.

It is estimated that every £1 invested in

Wealden Citizens Advice is worth

£18.72 to our clients

£2.46 in savings to the taxpayer

£13.16 in public value

Chief Executive’s Report

Improving access to our services

Most of our services operate from our three

local offices in Crowborough, Hailsham

and Uckfield. Funding from the Big Lottery

Fund has meant all our offices are now

open 5 days a week - offering a 4 day a

week drop in service, with 1 day a week for

specialist appointments and telephone

advice only.

This year we have also tried to reach out

into the wider community to make it easier

for people to access advice. In addition to

our face to face outreach at Heathfield we

now have 9 skypereach services in place

at Forest Row, Hailsham, Hartfield,

Heathfield, Herstmonceux, Horam,

Rotherfield St Martin, Wadhurst and

Withyham. Each location has a

laptop/tablet in place where people can

seek advice from the Citizens Advice

website and, if they want to, skype us so

that they can have a face to face service

without travelling. Take up of the skype

service has not been as high as we

expected so in the year ahead we will be

working with local councils and community

groups to see if we can find a model that

works better.

We also implemented our on-line referral

portal Cabconnect. This is a secure on-

line system which enables: partner

agencies, doctors, schools and other

service providers to refer clients who may

need advice and support. We hope this will

enable us to reach those who may not

have heard of us or who may have lacked

the confidence to ask for help.

I want to pay tribute to our Outreach

Creation & Promotion worker Linda

Mason who worked tirelessly to get these

projects off the ground, putting in many

miles of travelling across the district.

Together with Citizens Advice East Sussex

colleagues, we have also benefitted from

Big Lottery funding to support those in

financial difficulty who also have mental

health issues - this has often resulted in

our specialist money advisers going out

into the community rather than clients

coming in to us. The First Aid for Debts

(FADES) project runs until July 2016 and

will then be evaluated to see to what extent

helping clients resolve their financial

problems has contributed to better health

outcomes.

The end of the year saw us hard at work

getting ready for the implementation of

ADVICELINE along with other Citizens

Advice East Sussex colleagues. This

means there is now one phone number for

advice in the area 03444 111444. Offices

in the East Sussex group share

responsibility for answering calls across

the county and can refer those needing

more in depth help to their nearest local

office for follow up support. Membership of

ADVICELINE means that East Sussex

offices also have access to the back up

support of a national call centre if all our

advisers are busy. While it has been a big

change, the first quarter of 2015/16 has

seen us able to help 24% more people

over the phone than over the same period

in 2014/15.

I am immensely proud to be part of a team

that is doing so much to support their local

community.

Kay Birch

Chief Executive

Financial Report

Income for the year to 31st March 2015 was £391,406 compared to £360,220 for the

previous year.

Expenditure for the year was £386,360 compared to £335,109 for the previous year.

Reserves increased by £5,046 to £111,492. This increase was due to an

underspend in year 1 of our Big Lottery funded project Better Together being carried

forward - this will be corrected in 15/16.

Income

Expenditure

Wealden DC £137,000

Town, Parish & CountyCouncils £87,254

Other grants £164,490

Donations & Fundraising£2,130

Investment income£532

Staff £248,956

Direct project costs £23,012

Premises £45,010

Office, IT & Comms £38,205

Governance £8,723

Other £22,454

Our People

We could not achieve what we do without

the commitment of our staff and our 120

strong volunteer team, who give up at least

a day a week to serve their communities in

the following roles:

Trustees 12

Finance, payroll, IT,

research & campaigns 8

Gateway assessors and advisers

(including trainees) 83

Reception and administration

(including trainees) 17

Each of these jobs is vital to our service,

whether they are: providing a welcoming

face to our clients; providing information

and advice; or ensuring that our systems

work effectively and that we are using our

resources wisely.

This year we have asked the team to cope

with huge amounts of change and our

particular thanks go to the volunteer

representatives Helen Gallagher, Mike

Tollitt and Carola Coles who have made

sure that ideas and concerns are surfaced

and addressed.

We are glad to see that volunteering for us

can help people develop their skills and

experience to go on to employment and

further training.

Tom’s Story……

For those of you that have painstakingly

looked for work, only to read, or worse, be told,

‘I’m afraid you don’t have enough experience’,

it must be extremely frustrating; you begin to

ask yourself ‘how can I get experience if I can’t

get work in the first place?’. Well there is a way

you can do this that will enable you to get

amazing experience working in an office

environment, working with members of your

local community, developing problem solving

skills, report writing, using databases,

researching legislation, liaising with local

councils or government departments and

talking with a wide range of people from all

walks of life. You can develop this and more, by

volunteering with Citizens Advice. They will

provide all training required. They are

immensely flexible and will enable you to

develop at your own pace.

The large bulk of their staff are made up of

volunteers, but I think a part of what it is to be

British is a sense of public duty, that you do

things for nothing, for organisations that can’t

pay, and I cannot emphasise enough how

much of a plus that is on a CV.

After spending a year at the CAB, I have now

gone to work for a Local Authority as an

Environmental Officer and a large part of

getting that position, was due to my

experiences for Citizens Advice. They are a

wonderful, helpful and compassionate

organisation to work for, and if I could have

remained and continued to volunteer, even if it

was just one day a week along with my new

job, I would.

If you would like more information about

volunteering for Wealden Citizens Advice

please contact Samantha Weatherill on 01825

762807 or email

administrator@uckfieldcab.cabnet.org.uk

Our volunteers

provide unpaid services worth

nearly £600,000

Training

Some of our volunteers remain with us for

many years and some, due to changing

circumstances, only stay for a while.

Therefore it is always important to maintain

regular recruitment and training of new

volunteers to ensure we maintain high

standards of advice.

Thanks to Lottery funding we have

benefitted greatly from increased training

hours, which have enabled us to maintain

the high standards of training and support

our volunteers need for their challenging

roles. We have 3 levels of generalist

advice training:

- Stage 1 – Reception and

Administration, which takes about 6

sessions in the office

- Stage 2 - Gateway Assessor, which

includes face to face training on advice

skills and the key advice areas,

research and supervised interviews

- Stage 3 - Full Adviser, it can take more

than a year of on the job training to

complete full adviser training.

In 2014/15

35 new volunteers joined the team

16 volunteers have completed gateway

assessor training

9 members of the team have gone on

to complete full adviser training.

A major focus this year has been equipping

our volunteers to manage the variety of

access routes to advice for clients. This

has included:

Adviceline - training for all on how to

operate, take and record calls

Skype - dealing with calls from

community outreach venues or from

clients in their own homes

E mail.

Through East Sussex County Council we

were also able to offer welfare reform

training across our three offices. The

training team has also prepared us for the

launch of Pensionwise and Universal

Credit.

Pauline Townsend, Trainer &

Crowborough Supervisor

Research &

Campaigns

At Citizens Advice we have twin aims - we

don’t just provide information and advice,

we also campaign for change in the

policies and practices that affect people’s

lives.

Over the course of the last year our staff

and volunteers recorded details of those

instances where they thought things

needed to change. Overall they submitted

766 examples to Citizens Advice which

were used in national campaigning.

The most pressing issue for us concerned

the benefit system, with delays and poor

administration resulting in hardship for our

clients. 10% of our returns to Citizens

Advice concerned the operation of

Employment Support Allowance (ESA).

ESA replaced Incapacity Benefit and is

designed for those who are too sick to

work, or have a limited capability to work. A

significant focus for us in 2014-15 was

making Employment Support Allowance Fit

for Work.

We produced a statistical report detailing

our clients’ experiences over 2014.

The top issues raised were:

Poor Administration - 25%

Concern around the quality of

ATOS medicals - 16%

Hardship as a result of benefit

suspension (including debt &

needing Food Bank vouchers) -

15%.

This work has meant we have been able

to:

- give people a voice

- achieve improvements to the

benefits process

- highlight the impact of policy

change on those with long term

health conditions and disabilities.

We also work to make people aware of

their rights and responsibilities.

Thanks to the efforts of Carol Clark we ran

five information sessions in local libraries

and community centres during Big Energy

Week 2014 - reaching 140 people. These

events included free hire of energy

monitors and an energy saving quiz for

families.

246

63

73 65

319

Benefits Employment

Debt Other

Utilities & communication

Again thanks to Carol we ran nine sessions

under Citizens Advice’s Energy Best Deal

campaign, giving advice on switching,

energy efficiency and managing fuel debt.

These sessions reached 182 people,

including those working for other agencies

in Wealden:

91% of consumers thought the

sessions were useful and 85% said

they would probably take action as a

result.

90% of the support workers who

attended events in 14/15 said that the

events had changed their view on the

importance of fuel poverty to their

clients and 85% said they would pass

their learning on.

96% of those who attended sessions

rated the trainer as good or excellent.

Ann Kates, Hailsham Supervisor

Phil Carpenter Research & Campaigns

Volunteer

View from the Floor

“Not Another Change, surely?”

Surprisingly, this has not been a refrain too

often heard from our loyal Volunteers.

Almost without exception they have

embraced: email, skype, text messaging,

data protection procedures, systems

changes, personnel changes, new referrals

and referral procedures, quality of advice

improvements and …. our new telephone

gateway system, Adviceline! This latest

was, for a while, the “Bogeyman in the

Corner”, but since it started in April,

everyone has had a try and while some like

it better than others, everyone is working

as a team to provide a good service to our

clients.

We are asking a great deal of our

volunteers to adapt to all these changes.

To keep them on board they need to see

how many more people who need us can

be reached by these new channels, while

still making sure we keep our doors open

for face-to-face help.

It would be comforting to say we have

reached the end of change, but we as a

service need to keep up with modern

methods of communication and reach out

even further into the community, very often

in partnership with other agencies, so I

would be fibbing if I said this was the end

of change.

One thing of which I am sure though, is

that our volunteers will embrace them, as

they always have, in the interest of our

clients.

Martha Mayes Uckfield Supervisor

Our Big Lottery Better

Together Partnership

The past year has seen a real step forward

in our service provision thanks to Big

Lottery funding and closer working with

partner agencies in our Better Together

project.

Together with our partners Brighton

Housing Trust, SEAP, Home Start East

Sussex, Age UK East Sussex, East

Sussex Disability Association, Sussex

Community Development Association,

Clued-up.info, Hailsham Food Bank,

Rotherfield St Martin and our colleagues in

Citizens Advice East Sussex (CAES) this

funding has enabled us to:

Use our three main offices to provide

specialist advice and services in

housing, welfare benefits, money

advice, advocacy, homelessness and

advice surgeries for older people. We

have helped over 500 people so far.

Implement 5 day a week opening at all

our main sites.

Introduce a 5 day a week telephone

ADVICELINE, which is operated

together with CAES.

Implement advice by email, again with

our colleagues in CAES.

Introduce advice by skype from home

and from 9 locations across the district

for those without internet access at

home.

Undertake inter-agency training.

Implement new sustainable

arrangements for recruiting and training

volunteers.

Implement an on-line referral portal so

that partners and other service

providers and professionals (e.g.

doctors and teachers) can, with the

client’s consent, refer them to any of

the registered services on the portal.

Undertake work in the community e.g.

confidence building with those for

whom English is not their first language

and delivery of pre-tenancy workshops

with Wealden District Council.

In addition to the changes we have

implemented there have been significant

additional benefits in terms of:

increased understanding and

awareness of each other’s services

more effective working relationships

increased confidence among our

generalist advisers because of the

support they have received from

the specialist team.

Our challenge now will be maintaining the

progress we have made when our Big

Lottery funding ends in August 2015.

Thank you!

As ever there are many people to thank

for supporting us in the work we do.

Thank you first and foremost to our

dedicated staff and fantastic

volunteer team without whom we

would not have a service.

Dawson Hart for being our honorary

legal advisers, for the provision of free

legal advice to our clients and in

addition for providing a free venue for

our Trustee Board meetings.

Chris Green of CNG Law for providing

free legal advice to our clients.

Rix & Kay Solicitors for providing free

legal advice to our clients.

Kay & Pascoe Solicitors for providing

free legal advice to our clients.

Whitfield & Co for providing free legal

advice to our clients.

The National Lottery Big Lottery Fund

for funding our First Aid for Debts

(FADES) project and our Better

Together Project.

Citizens Advice East Sussex

colleagues without whom ADVICELINE

would not have been possible.

The Friends of Crowborough CAB for all their fundraising efforts.

.

Our partners Age UK East Sussex,

Brighton Housing Trust, SEAP, East

Sussex Disability Association, Home

Start East Sussex, SOMPRITI Sussex

Community Development Association,

Rotherfield St Martin, Hailsham Food

Bank, Clued-up.info for all they have

done to help us offer improved services

to our clients.

Thank you to our local councils for their

support both financial and practical:

Wealden District Council

Crowborough, Uckfield, Hailsham and

Polegate Town Councils

And to the Parish Councils of:

Arlington, Berwick, Buxted, Chiddingly,

Danehill, Forest Row, Hadlow Down,

Hartfield, Heathfield & Waldron,

Hellingly, Herstmonceux, Horam,

Laughton, Maresfield, Pevensey,

Rotherfield, Wadhurst, Warbleton,

Willingdon & Jevington and Withyham .

East Sussex County Council for funding

welfare reform training and specialist

benefits advice.

All the supporters of Energy Best Deal.

Carillion Cottage/Social Action Project.

Need advice?

Visit the Citizens advice website at: www.citizensadvice.org.uk

Call us on: ADVICELINE 03444 111 444 9.30 - 4.00PM every weekday

Email us at: www.eastsussexcab.co.uk

Drop in and see us: between 9.30am and 3.00pm. Crowborough Citizens Advice Uckfield Citizens Advice Croham Lodge The Hub Croham Road Civic Approach Crowborough Uckfield East Sussex TN6 2RH East Sussex TN22 1AL Hailsham Citizens Advice Southview Western Road Hailsham East Sussex BN27 3DN Opening Hours Hailsham CAB and Uckfield CAB are open for drop-in advice Monday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday.

Crowborough CAB is open for drop-in advice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday. There is a face to face outreach session at Heathfield Community Centre every Friday 10am - 12pm Skype Outreach Sessions You can reach us by skype 10am - 12 noon every day. There is a tablet computer & help to Skype available for you to use at: Hartfield Parish Council: Mon 10am-12pm Horam Community Centre: Mon 10am-12pm Herstmonceux Village Information Centre: Tues 10am-12pm Withyham Parish Council: Tues 10am-12pm Rotherfield St Martin: 1st & 3rd Tues 10am-12pm Wadhurst Carillon Cottage: Weds 10am-12pm Forest Row Community Centre: Weds 10am-12pm Heathfield Childrens Centre (term time only): Thurs 10am-12pm Hailsham Trust Charity Shop Mon- Fri 10am-12pm

You can like us on Facebook and follow us on twitter at @WealdenCAB Details of our outreach locations and how to contact us by skype are on also available on our website: www.citizensadvice.org.uk/wealdencitizensadvice