Protecting Vulnerable People

 Margaret Ritchie MLA, Minister for Social Development with Derek Alcorn, Chief Executive, Citizens Advice

Margaret Ritchie MLA, the Minister for Social Development, put vulnerable people at the heart of what she spoke about when delivering the keynote speech at the Citizens Advice AGM, held at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on Thursday 16th October.

The Minister said, “Citizens Advice Bureaux have doubtless experienced an increased demand for services and accordingly the DSD is now asking itself 2 key questions - How can we protect vulnerable people and how can we ensure that in future there are fewer vulnerable people in our society?”

Consequently, Benefit Uptake is now seen as one of the key priorities for the SSA as experience has shown that the Agency needs to reach out to the public to ensure that they receive all of the benefits that they are entitled to. Margaret Ritchie illustrated this by saying, “We are working with Citizens Advice in order to offer a comprehensive assessment of benefit entitlement and this in turn has generated an additional £15million in benefits - no small sum.”  She then personally thanked Citizens Advice and the staff and volunteers of bureaux for the excellent work that they have carried out in relation to benefit uptake programme. “Many of these vulnerable people are in hard to reach groups but through partnership we have been successful in raising awareness of benefit entitlement. This is a time when partnership working is of the utmost importance.”

Developing her speech she reiterated the sentiments that the advice sector will have to be open to change by saying, “we need advice services that are open, welcoming, accessible, responsive, and include new methods of delivery such as web based information and email advice.” She also stressed the importance of good quality generalist advice throughout Northern Ireland considering it to be extremely important as it makes a huge difference to people’s lives.

The Minister concluded by saying, “Now more than ever we need a good quality, reliable and independent advice service to ensure that the most vulnerable in society have the help they need. I believe CAB has a vital role to play and I know how much of a difference you can make on an individual and collective basis for your customers.”