Research & Campaigns
During the Autumn of 2023, our Research and Campaigns team have been working on a leaflet and a poster to make pre settled parents of new babies aware that it is important to register their babies as pre settled to avoid hospital bills. We are aware of people being hit with hospital bills because they were unaware of this requirement.
During the Spring of 2023, Citizens Advice Exeter staff and volunteers undertook a survey of 200 people to gauge the impact of the cost of living crisis (COL) on Exeter residents.
The results, in terms of all of the criteria we looked at, are stark. The comments people made in respect of the effect of COL on their mental health makes for difficult reading, with many people’s mental health deteriorating - even suicide was mentioned.
We encountered a great deal of concern around housing costs and potential homelessness- a direct consequence of the squeeze on budgets, combined with the increase in mortgage costs, and rapidly rising rents made much worse by the three year freeze in local housing allowance (LHA).
We call on government to increase benefits and LHA in line with the real costs encountered by people in this highly challenging climate.
For enquiries about the content of the above report, please address these to: mandy.bowater@citizensadviceexeter.org.uk
During the summer of 2022 our Research and Campaigns team undertook some research and campaigning work in regards to Scams and Scams Awareness.
They created a questionnaire and asked the general public at various outreach /promotional events questions about the level and range of scams they had experienced.
They also wanted to assess the level of knowledge in the Exeter region in respect to the level of scams, if the public knew how to report scams, and educate them in how to get scam alerts. All of this information has been analysed and reviewed.
As a result a very insightful Scams Awareness Report has been produced. It is very sobering reading and a sign of our times that everyone that we surveyed had been involved in an actual scam or targeted by scammers. It is a dangerous business, incurring not only a significant financial impact on the residents of Exeter but also taking an emotional toil as well.
During April 2021 to March 2022 some staff and volunteers of Citizens Advice Exeter undertook extensive research into our client’s experiences in relation to telephone health assessments for their Personal Independence Payment applications.
As a result of this research we have produced a report called ‘Calling for Change: Telephone Health Assessment Fail the Test’ – see link below for full details of the report and our key findings and recommendations.
The report was sent to local councillors and some MPs, one of whom was Sir Stephen Timms (Chair, Work and Pensions Select Committee) who commented: ‘ I was interested to read that about one fifth of people involved in your survey weren’t given any notice before being contacted to complete their health assessment. I will keep this in mind as the Committee moves forward with our inquiry and begins to think about making recommendations to the Government.’ For more details of the work of this committee please go to: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/1468/health-assessments-for-benefits/publications/.
If you would like to talk to us about this report or would like paper copies, please do contact us via researchandcampaign@citizensadviceexeter.org.uk We aim to respond within 5 working days of receipt of any emails.
Thank you for taking an interest in this important piece of research.