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Social Report
January 2001
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When
a client comes into either of our Caithness offices we collect statistics
from that query. Even if the client remains anonymous we can collect
statistical evidence on what the query was regarding. We try and get the
client’s council codes even if they wish total anonymity this allows us
to establish patterns and trends. Up until now we have not used these
statistics for social policy.
Earlier this year we established a social policy team, namely Rena, Yvonne, and Jackie who have spent several months collecting and recording this data. When we initially started we were unsure what patterns would be established, however we felt we had very useful information lying dormant which could be publicised with the view of supporting change. We have focused on four main topics although these are pretty wide and cover a lot of scope. Employment queries, Benefit queries, Debt, and Housing issues. The findings are published in this report. Current trends that became apparent from the statistical data demonstrate that there are very different trends of queries between both towns. These trends are related to prosperity. Wick had less queries associated to people with money and employment and more relating to benefits and debt. When we analysed this further we focused on what council codes within Wick area these queries came from it became apparent that not only were there differing trends between Wick and Thurso there were also different trends between the three council codes in Wick. The underlying themes of poverty and illness are apparent within these trends. When we talk in this report of Wick and Thurso we are referring unless stated to the three council codes that makes up both Wick and Thurso and not the amount of queries that come into each office. Housing In the Wick CAB 51 housing queries were dealt with. The issues varied from Right to Buy, private landlord problems and environmental. The main problem areas were:
Housing Organisations The queries were from the three main housing organisations in Wick.
Council Code The most interesting statistics gathered from the housing was that half the queries came from the one council code. It could be argued those clients from central or NE Caithness may have used the Thurso office. However it would be fair to say that within Wick most people would use the Wick Office and the difference in the three council codes is evident.
Percentage of Housing in Wick To give you an indication of the housing status of individual council areas we obtained statistics from the 1991 Census Profile.
Employment We used comparisons from Wick and Thurso as oppossed to council code as where the client lived had no reflection on where they worked. There was 152 queries regarding employment issues.
Topics Of all the queries listed obviously given the large number of Thurso queries compared to Wick, Thurso had more queries per topic except REDUNDANCY. Redundancy accounted for 6 of the 41 queries in Wick compared with 5 of the 114 queries in Thurso. The list of topics extends to over 22 but the main topics are listed below.
DEBT The relatively large difference in queries in employment issues between Wick and Thurso is not evident in the Debt. Three Council codes in Thurso had 195 contacts compared with 185 overall in Wick area. The debts covered in Wick
The grand total of queries was 272 that were raised by 185 contacts for the three Wick Council Codes. When the contacts were split into the three separate council codes in Wick the bulk were from Pultneytown.
Benefits
These benefits are usually in general terms related to the sick, elderly, single parents and carers. In all Wick has more than a third of the queries of the whole of Caithness. Disability benefits the ratio was 2:3 contacts for the Wick council codes. However with other benefits that are connected with employment the trend was different.
To claim these benefits in general terms the client is either in employment or has paid enough Ni Contributions to qualify. * Queries regarding either Incapacity Benefit or Statutory Sick Pay Age was collected and measured in three groups, under 25’s, 25-60 years, and over pension age. It was a fairly even spread between each group.
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