On Tuesday 19th September 2006, the Plymouth Welfare Rights Forum was proud to present the first Plymouth Welfare Benefits Conference.

Initially the Conference was co-ordinated for advisors in the Plymouth area.  However, this rapidly expanded not only to the whole South West region, but across the UK as well.  The Conference attracted a Government Minister as the Key Speaker, along with highly commended presenters for the workshops.  

Colin Trend, Chair of the PWRF welcomed delegates from not only the voluntary/not-for-profit sector, but across the statutory sector, to the Conference.

Cllr Tudor Evans, Leader of Plymouth City Council, opened the Conference with a considered speech regarding social inclusion and income maximisation.  

The Rht Hon Dawn Primarolo, HM Paymaster General then address the Conference.  Details of her speech can be found on:

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk:80/newsroom_and_speeches/speeches/paygenspeeches/Speech_pmg_190906.cfm

Or to view her speech in full on this site, click here .  Comment was also passed by the Paymaster General on the working and active Social Inclusion: Income Maximisation Strategy held by Plymouth City Council in conjunction with the Voluntary Sector.  Dawn was able to take a full copy of the strategy with her and it was noted that Plymouth is one of only 2 local authorities to have a working strategy and not a shelved document.

Peter Aley, Head of Safer Communities, Plymouth City Council, also addressed the Conference to talk further about Social Inclusion.

Delegates were able to enjoy networking throughout the day and refreshments were provided.  Delegates had the opportunity to attend 2 out of 4 workshops running throughout the day.  Workshops were based on the Healthy, Wealthy, Safe and Wise themes:

Healthy - Workshop A:  presented by Vincent Wilson from Devon Welfare Rights Unit (www.dwru.org).  Delegates considered the impact of the new Green Paper Reforms where Incapacity Benefit will move across to the new Employment Support Allowance.  Debate was held over how this will affect clients and expectations of medicals.

Wealthy - Workshop B:  presented by Darin Halifax, Income Maximisation Officer from Plymouth City Council.  Delegates were able to learn about Benefit and Tax Credit take-up campaigns, why these are important to Local Authorities and how advisors, clients and authorities alike can benefit.

Safe - Workshop C:  presented by Nick Heape of the South West Integration Team (SWing).  Delegates considered how ex-offenders trying to rehabilitate back into the community often face difficulties, such as accessing an income.  The difficulties in general faced by this group can also include debt issues, residency and homelessness. 

Wise - Workshop D:  presented by Richard Wakerell, Director of Plymouth & District MIND Association.  Delegates were given the opportunity to listen to tapes via headphones which would give them an indication of the difficulties faced by those with mental health illnesses such as multi personality disorder.  Delegates were then able to discuss how they found trying to hold 'normal' conversations whilst also listening to voices via tapes.

Each of the workshops had excellent feedback.  There were some accessibility difficulties due to committee rooms being changed at the last moment and this was outside the control of the Forum.  However it was recognised that this caused some hearing difficulties in one of the workshops due to the acoustics of the room.

We have been asked to run the Conference on an annual basis, however, the mammoth task that this involves when it is co-ordinated by volunteers, means that the Conference may be produced on a bi-annual basis.  This means that it will run alongside the bi-annual debt conference currently co-ordinated between Money Advice Plymouth (MAP) and Plymouth CAB.