Did you know Dumfries and Galloway Council have specially trained advisors who can give you confidential benefit advice and help you get what’s rightfully yours?
During Challenge Poverty week it has been revealed that our contact centre has handled 116,000 calls from people in our region.
Our Council’s contact centre provides customers with a wide range of crucial services over the telephone and email: varying from complex Council Tax, benefit enquiries, FIAT, and Scottish Welfare Fund enquiries, or Social Work adult referrals, to reporting faults and arranging payments for bulky uplifts. We can also help you complete benefit application forms. Some of our most recent calls have involved people needing crisis grants following unforeseen redundancies or withdrawal of benefits.
Our Contact Centre is a major part of the Council’s Anti-Poverty Strategy, providing effective ways for customers to access services. The service is continually being developed and reviewed, with Social Work Adult Referrals and Scottish Welfare Fund being the most recent developments.
The Scottish Welfare Fund, is the Council’s crisis and community care grant service. The crisis grants can help if you have an emergency or disaster and need to pay for short term living costs.
To apply you need to be aged 16 or over, in receipt of low income or benefits and not have access to any other appropriate source of financial help.
Community care grants allow people to live, or continue to live, independently. You can access this service online, or through the contact centre on 030 33 33 3007 where our Call Handlers will take some details from you and arrange a call back, for the crisis grants this will be within 1 working day, and for community care grants this will be within 3 working days.
Council Leader, Ronnie Nicholson took the opportunity on Wednesday (19th October) to see for himself what kind of calls our Contact Centre operators deal with on a day to day basis. He commented: “During Challenge Poverty week we are taking this opportunity to raise the profile of our call centre so that people in need of help know who they can call.
I am proud to hear that we are helping so many people. Sometimes the very thought of making that call to ask for help can be daunting, but our friendly, trained operators are right at the end of the phone or computer to help you out. The team can advise you which benefits you and your family may be eligible for and maximise your income. They can give you more information and help you fill in forms.
I came here today to see for myself how our advisors are helping people deal with their situations. This is the front line for us, personal contact with the people who need our help most. Our Council will do whatever they can to help people facing extreme hardship and I would urge people to ‘make that call’.”
