Our heating will be on, and we will have activities, books and games for entertainment, you can charge your phones or devices and access our free wifi. Our lovely team will do their best to make you feel welcome with tea, coffee and biscuits!

We also have active sessions including chair-based yoga and fitness classes at our 610 Community Centre in Kingstanding, for more information on all of our free timetabled activity sessions please click here. Everybody is welcome at all age-appropriate sessions!

Our wonderful team of qualified advisers will be available in Kingstanding for free money and cost of living advice for anyone who needs. Please just ask if you would like to speak to one of our advisers for advice on energy tariffs, benefits, and to help you save money on your utility bills.

Birmingham Settlement are here to help – please don’t feel feel alone this winter!

Our sessions aimed to help Birmingham residents with the Cost of Living crisis. We had sessions offering tips and ideas for how to budget and manage money, and our money advisors were available to chat to in drop-in sessions for some more personal advice on dealing with benefits and debts. Our lovely team were available throughout the event and were happy to answer all money-related questions.

After a morning of workshops, presentations, and drop in sessions, our last session was a relaxing mindfulness workshop. Mindfulness is a great way to help improve physical and mental wellbeing by teaching different tools that can be useful to manage stress during the Cost of Living Crisis.

We hope our sessions were helpful for everybody who attended. Keep an eye on our website and social media for regular updates about future sessions and events with Birmingham Settlement!

Feedback included such comments as: ‘Birmingham Settlement has exceeded the requirements of the AQSv2 to a significant extent’ and from the Peer Review Assessor ‘The Organisation shows admirable ability in handling clients with poor or limited English skills.’

We are contracted by The Money Advice Service to deliver money advice in the West Midlands.  Following a recent, independent assessment, we are not required to be audited again for another 3 years, which puts us among the top 20% of organisations across the country to have achieved this status.

Our Money Advice Team has a high and ever increasing demand on its services, so we are proud to be able to meet this demand, whilst maintaining a high quality service for our clients. If you would like to find out more about our Money Advice service or you need support with your finances, please visit our website at http://bit.ly/BSMASHP or give us a call on 0121 250 0777.

For more information, keep an eye out for our November E-bulletin which offers more detail about Universal Credit.

All claims for Universal Credit will have to be made online.

True. 

Most claimants will have to claim online, but there may be telephone and face to face services for those people who are unable to manage their claims online and need support.

 Under Universal Credit, jobseekers will be expected to treat looking for work as a full time job.   

Largely True.

‘Jobseeker’ claimants are normally expected to spend 35 hours a week looking for work but this can be reduced / restricted in certain circumstances (for example, if you have ill-health or have caring responsibilities).

Where there is a non-dependent living in a claimant’s household, a deduction of £70.06 a month will be applied to any award for housing costs.

Partially true. 

The non-dependent deduction (NDD) under UC is a flat rate amount of £70.06 per month regardless of the non-dependent’s income.  In some circumstances, however, there is no deduction. For example, where the non-dep is under 21, is a boarder/lodger, or where the non-dependent (or claimant) gets Attendance Allowance, PIP (daily living component) or DLA (middle/ high rate of the care component).

Under Universal Credit, for those who are unable to work due to illness or disability the current ESA ‘support’ component will increase from £36.20 per week to more than £70 per week.

True. 

The UC equivalent of the support component is the limited capability for work related activity element which will be paid at £318.76 per month (£73.56 per week) but note that there are no equivalent disability / severe disability / enhanced disability premiums in UC. This means that many claimants with disability / ill health may be substantially worse off under the UC system.

All UC claimants will be expected to do some work related activity.

False. 

Some claimants will not have any conditionality attached.  For example, those in the ‘support’ group, those with child under the age of one, carers.

Many young people will be financially better off under Universal Credit.

According to DWP, 300,000 claimants under the age of 25 will be better off, i.e.  those in low paid work who currently don’t qualify for WTC because they are under 25 / don’t work 30 hours +.

An Overpayment of UC will be recoverable even if it occurred as a result of a mistake by the DWP (official error).

True.

But there will be discretion not to actually recover the overpayment. A minister of the government said that it was the intention not to recover many overpayments which had been caused by official error. Challenges can also be made about whether there has, in fact, been an overpayment and whether the overpayment has been calculated correctly.

Birmingham Settlement is working in partnership with Staffordshire and West Midlands Community Rehabilitation Company and Her Majesty’s Prison Service. The aim of the partnership is to bring specialist debt and benefits advice to people who would not normally be able to access these services. We specifically aim to assist vulnerable people by offering assistance and support with all issues relating to money advice, with the specific aim of improving their quality of life, stabilising their financial situation and generally aiding their integration back into mainstream society.

We would like to say a massive well done to Kamran for achieving this award!

A common misconception about Pension Credit is that you cannot have more than £16,000 in savings. This is not true.

There is no cut off limit although the Department for Work and Pensions do assume that you have an income from your savings by using a tariff income. This is worked out by ignoring the first £10,000. They then assume an income of £1 for every £500 over the £10,000.

So if, for example, a claimant had £20,000, the DWP would assume they had an income of £20 a week from those savings (20,000 – 10,000 = 10,000 / 500 = £20).

If you think you might be entitled to unclaimed Pension Credit, you can find out more at https://www.gov.uk/pension-credit or you can pop along to our Money Advice drop in where our experienced Advisors will be able to assess if you are eligible and help you make a claim.  Details of our Money Advice drop in can be found at http://bit.ly/BSMADI.

(1)  https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up-financial-year-201516