For release: Tuesday 16th July 2024
January 2024 Update. Figures to 31/12/2023
The West Midlands Immigration Network was created in October 2022 by four non-profit organisations operating in the region with funding received under the Justice Together Initiative.
How the cost-of-living crisis continues to affect North StaffordshireSeptember 2023 Update
How the cost-of-living crisis continues to affect North Staffordshire
Author: Julie Holdcroft, Citizens Advice Staffordshire North & Stoke-on-Trent
How the cost-of-living crisis is still affecting North Staffordshire
How the cost of living crisis is affecting North Staffordshire
The Financial Conduct Authority has finally announced what action it will take to curb the costs of high cost credit.
Staffordshire County Council have invested in the county's Citizens Advice service for over 30 years in various ways, from creating the first specialist debt advice service in the county to the latest incarnation of a countywide advice line backed up with a limited face to face service.
Anyone who believes in fairness at work, that work should pay and be the route out of poverty or who is concerned that the so-called 'gig economy' is just a smokescreen behind which workers are being exploited, will have been heartened by the recent Employment Tribunal ruling on the status...
We have received several reports recently from various people, clients, members of the public and even staff, who have been cold-called by someone purporting to be from CAB, offering them help with their debts. Worryingly they are also asking for bank details so that they can set up payments.
… then it almost certainly is.
When Universal Credit was first announced there were some glimmers of optimism surrounding the DWP’s claims that it would make work pay, reduce the shocks people experience when moving into work and cut the punitive marginal tax rates people working and claiming benefit experience.
There may be lies, damned lies and statistics but one of the most alarming that I have heard recently concerned benefit fraud.
In the run up to the recent spending review most political attention was focused on the proposed cuts to Tax Credits and the damage they would do to the livelihoods of the working poor. In what has been described as everything from a major climb down or U turn to...
The Government appears intent in pressing ahead with its cuts to tax credits. With £4 billion a year savings at stake, it's easy to see why. However, the scale of these cuts is significantly higher than anything that has been suggested before. Having already taken billions out of the social security...
When the benefit cap was first introduced it was justified by saying people on benefit shouldn’t receive more than people on a typical income.
During the election period we heard a lot about hard working families who 'do the thing thing', mainly as a group praised by politicians targeted with many pre-election promises of support. Since the election Government ministers have talked about the 'security of work', as if work in itself bestowed security...
On Friday 9th October the Stoke-on-Trent Hardship Commission launched its report. After 12 months of hard work, reviewing statistics, talking to the people who experience poverty first hand and deliberating over their recommendations, they finally released their conclusions.