CPAG IN SCOTLAND CONFERENCE
Annual Conference:
Welfare Rights 2010
Friday 18 June 2010, 10am to 4pm
£110 per delegate
Glasgow
Caledonian University
70 Cowcaddens Road
Glasgow G4 0BA
With the dust settling from the UK general election and Scottish elections less than a year away this conference provides an opportunity to take stock of the implications for advisers and find out about the latest developments in benefits and tax credits. Come and join advisers, leading politicians and welfare reform campaigners to debate how the Scottish Government has supported welfare rights services and their role in tackling poverty and how the new UK Government will approach the welfare system.
The annual conference for welfare rights workers, other advisers and policy workers in Scotland.
Programme (subject to change)
09.30 Arrival, registration and coffee
10.00
- Setting the scene
John Dickie
Head of CPAG Scotland
- Keynote speaker
Nicola Sturgeon
Deputy First Minister of Scotland, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing
10.50 Coffee
11.10 Workshops – morning session
12.30 Lunch
1.30 Workshops – afternoon session
2.45 Coffee
3.00 Question Time
- Broadcaster and journalist, Keith Aitken, will chair a lively debate with a panel of MPs, advisers and welfare reform campaigners, including, Jim Boyle, Programme Coordinator, UK Poverty Oxfam and Tommy Gorman, Senior Project Manager, Macmillan Cancer Support, to discuss the future of the welfare system in the light of the UK general election result.
4.00 Final remarks and close
Workshops
ESA appeals (Room A313)
Simon Osborne
Welfare Rights Worker, CPAG
Appeals against failures of the work capability assessment for employment and support allowance have started and will grow over the next few years. This workshop will look at some of the essential features of such appeals, and will in particular consider basic rules, tactics and caselaw.
Simon Osborne is a welfare rights worker in CPAG’s Citizens’ Rights Office, and was previously a rights worker with Disability Alliance. He is consultant editor and an author of the Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits Handbook and contributor to the Welfare Rights Bulletin.
For better or for worse? – tax credits and couples (Room A426c)
Mark Willis
Welfare Rights Worker, CPAG in Scotland
Did you know the definition of a couple for tax credits is different from social security benefits? This workshop looks at the implications of whether someone is in a couple or not for tax credits, including childcare costs, working hours and income issues. It will also cover the recent changes in the recovery of overpayments when a couple gets together or separates.
Mark Willis has worked in welfare rights since 1991 and is currently a welfare rights worker with CPAG in Scotland’s tax credits project. He is an author of the Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits Handbook.
Lone parents and welfare reform (Room A303b)
Alison Gillies
Welfare Rights Worker, CPAG in Scotland
Marion Davis
Policy, Development and Training Manager, One Parent Families West of Scotland
Recent years have seen major changes for lone parents claiming benefit, with many now having to rely on jobseeker’s allowance instead of income support. This trend is set to continue, with lone parents of younger children having to be ‘available for and actively seeking’ work and others potentially having to engage in ‘work-related activity’. This workshop brings us up to date with these developments and sets out the forthcoming changes in this area, including the impact on lone parents of the Welfare Reform Act 2009.
Alison Gillies is a welfare rights worker at CPAG in Scotland. She is author of CPAG’s Children’s Handbook Scotland. She has worked in welfare rights since 1985.
Marion Davis is Manager of Development and Policy Services at One Parent Families Scotland’s West of Scotland office. Marion is on the boards of the Poverty Alliance, the Scottish Women Convention and CPAG in Scotland’s Advisory Committee. Working in partnership, her work focuses on enabling lone parents’ views and experiences to feed into policy developments towards the eradication of child poverty.
Transfer from incapacity benefits to ESA (Room A426)
Angela Toal
Welfare Rights Worker, CPAG in Scotland
The DWP has announced that it will begin transferring incapacity benefit and income support claimants to ESA between 2011 and 2014, with severe disablement allowance claimants to follow, after a trial run in October this year. This workshop will look at the proposals for migration, and facilitate discussion of the implications for claimants.
Angela Toal is a welfare rights worker with CPAG in Scotland and is author of CPAG's Benefits for Students in Scotland Handbook.
Practical issues under the tribunal rules of procedure (Room A423)
Edward Jacobs
Judge of the Upper Tribunal
After a brief account of the reasons behind the tribunal reform programme in order to set the new rules of procedure in their context, the workshop will take a practical approach to issues that arise in practice under the rules. In particular, it will deal with the use of the overriding objective in making procedural applications, the effect of the duty to co-operate, the proper approach to directions given by the tribunal, barring the Secretary of State, and the use of the tribunal’s review powers. There will be plenty of time to raise issues that delegates have experienced in practice.
Edward Jacobs is a Judge of the Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber). He was previously a barrister in practice, a lecturer, a full-time chairman of tribunals and a Child Support and Social Security Commissioner. He is the author of Child Support: The Legislation (CPAG 2010) and Tribunal Practice and Procedure (LAG 2009), and a contributing editor to Jowitt’s Dictionary of English Law.
Welfare reform – new deal or raw deal? (Room A303a)
Judith Paterson
Welfare Rights Co-ordinator, CPAG in Scotland
Recent reforms continue to shape the benefit system into one that offers fewer opportunities to claim without either actively looking for work or engaging in work-related activity. The spotlight is still on disabled people and lone parents but also increasingly takes in partners with or without children, sifting claimants into one of three groups: a work-ready group, a ‘progression to work group’, or a ‘no conditionality’ group. What will the system look like when the most recent reforms are enacted? Who can claim and what conditionality will apply? This workshop examines these questions and asks whether we can expect these reforms to achieve the aim of delivering higher employment and lower child poverty in the years to come.
Judith Paterson is welfare rights co-ordinator with CPAG in Scotland. She is an author of the Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits Handbook, and of the Disability Rights Handbook which she previously edited.
Details of the venue
The conference will be held at the Govan Mbeki building at Caledonian University. This is across the road from Buchanan Street bus station and a 5 minute walk from Glasgow Queen Street train station. View travel directions.
Booking a place and further information
To book a place please print off our conference programme and complete the booking form or you can email pchalmers@cpagscotland.org.uk with your contact details, details of where the invoice should be sent, as well as your workshop preferences – both morning and afternoon.
This conference is the only one of its kind in Scotland and places are limited. Please book early to avoid disappointment.
CPAG in Scotland
Unit 9, Ladywell,
94 Duke Street,
Glasgow,
G4 0UW
Tel: 0141 552
3303
Fax: 0141 552 4404
Email:
pchalmers@cpagscotland.org.uk
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