Tackling Welfare Reform in the Round is a series of roundtable discussions which aim to find collaborative solutions to mitigate the impacts of welfare reform.
The roundtable events in Edinburgh are jointly hosted by SCVO, EVOC and Inclusion Scotland. The first event took place in December 2015 and was well attended by representatives from across the Third Sector and the City of Edinburgh Council. During the event, Calum Ogden from Citizens Advice Edinburgh presented on the impact that welfare reform has had on advice services. There was also a presentation about partnership working by Gillian Ritchie from the City of Edinburgh Council. Gillian presented examples of successful partnership working including the partnership between the Department for Work and Pensions and the City of Edinburgh Council to create a Delivery Partnership Agreement.
For the first discussion, participants were placed into groups to answer the following questions:
- Why is welfare reform a problem?
- What do we want to tackle?
- What would make welfare reform easier to deal with?
Five central themes emerged from the responses in first discussion and were used as themes to be discussed in the second discussion
- Cultural Change
- (Online) Directory and Referral Service
- Preventative Work and Capacity Building
- Localisation and Personalisation
- Information and Communication
Participants were invited to select a theme and create and action plan using the following questions as a guide
- What good work is already happening?
- What more can we do?
- Who else should be involved?
There were many great ideas circulated and groups were eager to put their plans outlined during the discussion into action.
For further information about the topics discussed, please see the event notes.
A second Tackling Welfare Reform in the Round event has been scheduled at 1pm on the 24th March 2016. To register for the event, please go to www.welfareroundtable.eventbrite.co.uk