Anual Reports 2023

A report on our work for 2022 to 2023

Castlemilk Law and Money Advice Centre

Annual Report 2023

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The total number of cases dealt with by the Law Centre in 2022-23 were as follows.

Total cases

Debt                            159

Housing                      134

Employment                16

Other                            33

Benefits                       919

Total                          1261

Benefits cases

General work on means-tested and disability-related benefits cases funded by CGC grant and legal aid on a case-by-case basis

Means-tested                 382

Disability-related            537

Total                                919

Including 93 tribunal callings

It was noticeable that the number of disability-related benefits cases fell in comparison with the years before the pandemic. It appeared that the DWP were taking fewer claimants off benefit resulting in fewer tribunal appeals. This may have been due to experience from the pandemic and the introduction of Social Security Scotland.

Housing debt cases

General work on rent, mortgage and homelessness cases funded by SLAB

Rent arrears                   31

Mortgage arrears             8

Other housing               95

Total                            134

Including 34 court and tribunal actions

The total number of housing cases were roughly the same as before the pandemic, however it was noticeable that the numbers of court and tribunal actions had increased in comparison with those pre-pandemic. It was also noticeable that the amount of rent arrears for clients had increased dramatically, probably due to lack of enforcement action during lockdown.

Aims and Objectives

The Law Centre continues to work by identifying clients and potential clients’ current social and financial problems and designing legal advice and representation services to address these.  There continues to be very high levels of poverty with the cost-of-living crisis and continued reliance on foodbanks.  Interest rates are historically high and housing problems are on the increase.  There is a substantial number of eviction actions being raised and many of these include rent arrears which are so high that it is very difficult for tenants to avoid a court order for eviction.  

The Law Centre uses the knowledge and experience of its staff to assist clients as far as possible, to maximise income and reduce debt, and to defend evictions where possible.  

It is doing this however in a context of reducing income with a consequent reduction in staff.  

Meeting our objectives is becoming more and more difficult and a central part of our work over the past year has involved an increasing emphasis on seeking out additional sources of funding and maintaining services where possible. If funding becomes restricted, we are able to help fewer and fewer people.  

Types of Work

The Law Centre continues to work in the most important areas affecting our clients. This includes housing law, debt, social security benefits and other areas of work including disability rights.

Housing

Most of the Law Centre’s housing work is currently carried out under the Housing Debt Project.  It mainly consists of rent and mortgage arrears cases.  Clients have substantial rent arrears due to the effects of non-payment during lockdown.  Mortgage arrears are also on the increase due to the rise in interest rates.  

As well as rent and mortgage arrears, our Housing Debt Project also deals with homelessness and ancillary matters such as succession, housing allocation, overcrowding, unsatisfactory housing and unmet housing need.  During the Covid pandemic, when court cases were on hold, high levels of rent and mortgage arrears were incurred due to reduced hours of employment, furlough and lack of ongoing work.  Many of these cases are now resulting in court actions for recovery.  There are post-Covid pressures on the courts which are unwilling to continue cases for repayment, resulting in more Proofs at court, necessitating additional legal work.  At the same time, many private sector landlords are seeking to raise rents, sell properties or move back into tenanted housing themselves.  All of this has resulted in increasing levels of homelessness.   Meanwhile, the local authority is experiencing a rise in the numbers of people presenting as homeless, while it tries to accommodate additional numbers of refugees and those who have fled the war in Ukraine.  This has led to a routine failure to meet their statutory homelessness duties, and this requires legal challenge.  At times the number of cases has been more than our sole solicitor working in this area can handle, and other solicitors have taken on these types of cases.  

Disrepair is also a growing issue in both social and private sector housing, caused by the inability of landlords to carry out routine maintenance during the pandemic, coupled with the financial implications for landlords of the current provisions capping rent increases.  In particular dampness has become an issue.  There are various legal remedies that can be employed to force landlords to comply.  

We are therefore facing an increase in demand for housing law casework and we are seeking additional sources of funding to cope with this.  

Debt

There is an increase in the number of local people with unsustainable financial liabilities.  These problems are arising due to the cost-of-living crisis and, over the past year, clients’ difficulties are often unresolvable.  The number of clients with debt problems has been fairly stable over the past year but with additional resources we can promote the help we can give and provide help to more people.  

In many cases however clients’ income is already maximised and it is difficult to find any disposable income for clients to make payment of arrears of debt.  We have worked on this from the point of view of highlighting difficulties faced by clients and focusing on the amount by which their income fails to meet essential items of expenditure such as food and energy costs.  

Benefits

Over the past year there has still been considerable demand from clients seeking help with social security benefits.  We act in benefit claims as well as reviews and appeals.  The Law Centre is primarily involved in poverty reduction and it is important for us to maintain an expertise in this area.  

Over the past year issues have included difficulties with Universal Credit and high levels of conditionality.  In particular, the DWP has continued to remove clients from benefits to which they are entitled.  This is particularly true of clients in receipt of disability-related benefits.  Clients are gradually being moved from UK administered benefits such as Personal Independence Payment to benefits administered by Social Security Scotland such as Adult Disability Payment.  It has taken some time for these changes to take effect.  

We shall continue to take on clients with benefit problems in order to maximise income as far as possible.  We are monitoring the changes in benefit with the movement to Social Security Scotland and we are highlighting the additional benefits available in Scotland to encourage their take-up as far as possible.

Other Areas

The Law Centre has a commitment to dealing with disability rights and this has involved us starting to take on an increased number of applications for Powers of Attorney along with other Law Centres.  We are seeking to increase the number of cases involving disability rights to include not only clients who have difficulties with benefits and adults with incapacity, but also other areas of work.  

The Law Centre also deals with employment law although the demand for applications to the Employment Tribunal has reduced.

Law Centre Administration

The Law Centre staff has stabilized at five solicitors and one advisor and five administrative members of staff.  This is equivalent to around eight FTE staff members.

This has resulted in us being able to take on a reduced number of clients.  The Law Centre continues to seek funding from central government, local authorities, grant awarding trusts and others.  In doing this we work very closely with other sister agencies and networks of advice groups and Law Centres.  We also utilise the Legal Aid system although this has also proved to be a reducing source of funding.  

The Law Centre this year has also had to contend with the need to increase salaries in the light of high inflation and many years of wage stagnation.  This has proved a serious problem for all Law Centre staff and we are indebted to their dedication in continuing to work assiduously and professionally for the benefit of Law Centre clients.  

Angus McIntosh

April 2023