there are many free agencies that offer the same and better help and advice

Many thanks for your comment, I appreciate that there are other services out there, CAB etc - but from trawling through a lot of posts, it seems that appointments are not always forthcoming in good time. As to 'better' - there are an awful lot of Professional Members who have subscriptions - so I hope the quality of their advice can be relied upon

I merely thought, as that site had been particularly helpful for me that it would be worth posting the details - I in no way advocate people paying for information BUT In my case it was the only way to ensure that I got the information I required in the timescale I needed it. So for me, money well spent.

It might be helpful if you were to publish a list of those free agencies - I for one would have been grateful for a comprehensive list - something I had not been able to find in the time I had available to me. Apologies if this list has already been published, I have not come across it

Many thanks

Sheila

its not only CAB.
there is DIAL and many councils have welfare rights departments.
also charity's for specific conditions also offer help and advice.

when my time comes to transfer to PIP i will contact the RNIB as well as my local welfare rights.

many people use ALL of their DLA/PIP awards towards the costs of care and aids so the costs of joining such a site is a large outlay that they cannot afford.

so jusrt pointing out that free help is available if you know where to find it.

I think it is more nuanced than this.
The CAB / Law Centres are most helpful for vulnerable clients. For clients with poor mental health, depression, and learning difficulties face to face advice is particularly helpful. Even better if the CAB has a benefit caseworker who can help the client with form filling / appeals (but not all CAB have specialists who can pick up benefit appeals). Funding for advice agencies is increasingly problematic.
As Shecar says assessing local advice can be difficult, there is always more demand for advice services than resources available (hence CAB's often have long waiting times), and benefit specialists are fewer following the abolition of legal aid for benefit representatives.
BTW I'm afraid to say that not many councils have accessible Welfare Rights Advisers now. This is from Brighton & Hove's website - "The council's welfare rights team is a small team who primarily train other advisers on welfare benefits."

The B & W guides are excellent (and written by experienced former Welfare Rights workers), it can be particular useful to have a guide to refer back to. Verbal information may not be so easily retained.
I think it's not a case of either / or. We are lucky to have free face to face advice and authoritative guides available at a very reasonable cost. (I don't think £20 per year is a large outlay, particularly if it helps towards a successful benefit outcome).

nannytone, thank you for that - I am still waiting for my daughters reply from the F2F last week - if she is successful I will be keeping myself up to date with as many of these institutions as possible, because it's only going to get harder.

Completely agree with that - it is helpful to have the guides in front of you when completing the form. They also include advice for the F2F and any Reconsideration or Tribunal procedures

i agree with what you say, but find it distasteful that any organisation that professes to 'help' the sick and disabled will only do so at a cost.

once the guide is written it no longer incurs a cost, yet they want to make money from as many vulnerable people as possible.

if it was a 'donation' that was asked for, it would be different, but to say you can look at the site and see what others have asked but unless you give us money then we don't really care about you and your circumstances.

especially when all they have to say is available free elsewhere

The forum and guides may be useful, but the way they scaremonger is disgusting.

Often they're not even right in their doom laden predictions.

Of course, the scaremongering just makes people believe they need the guides even more...

As ever I agree with Alice B and W have really great information.

Unfortunately, the "pushing" of a site that has very little traffic (great that it is) by folks on here doesn't help it's cause

Apologies if you thought or I appeared to be pushing the site, I was merely bringing it to the attention of others that may not have come across it - I hadn't heard of it until I received my daughters migration paperwork and decided to see whether there were any guidance (other than the DWP) online, I immediately found both the B&W site and CAB guidance notes.
As I said before, I do not wholly agree with payments for information - but in my case it was useful

No problem

I think that a few of us have seen people coming on here and "pushing" B and W before - so may be we are a bit bruised

Like all sites it helps which is all good. It's forum is great for folks who want an ongoing one to one which somewhere bigger, like here, cannot provide. But it is slow.

It's information, as Alice says, is really really good. If you can't access face to face support, easily or on a regular basis, then it's invaluable. But, it still somewhat sticks in the craw that they are charging for something of which much is available, free, elsewhere

Additionally it does depend on where you live. Where I live which is a county predominately a rural environment there is little choice. What choice there is heavily subscribed.
As an example there are three AgeUK offices with only one offering benefit advice of a general nature. Should you require more detailed advice that office must seek it from a larger branch in London some 90 miles away. There is one DIAL which is about 50 miles away in the whole county. CAB is the only one that exists in each of the main towns. Obviously that is massively oversubscribed.
At the end of the day most in my county have to go it alone.

I was 'lucky' that the local jobcentre stepped in to help. I did manage to get an appointment with a Welfare Rights office but they could not offer an appointment before the form had to be returned. Another that I contacted many miles away forgot to get back to me with an appointment.

But, I suppose it's the fact that you can get replies on a daily basis - which, unfortunately, you may not get elsewhere

The B&W site and resources are amazing, and to get the best possible results for PIP and ESA I think £19.95 is a bargain. Using their guides I got into the Support Group for ESA and my daughter has used them again to fill in my PIP form for me. Where I live there are no free resources, CAB are impossible to get an appointment with and there's nothing else available.

Why would you not use them? In a Facebook page I'm on for chronic illness they were moaning about a woman offering form filling in for£80.......people are desperate and B&W are offering a service that's needed.......for a very cheap price........And could potentially help you to get the money you are entitled to!

But do you

Last time I looked the person wasn't on till Monday - and that was a Saturday.

As I say I think it works really well for some people (not much traffic though)

But, from experience, an ongoing email/web chat is nowhere near as good as a face to face

I wondered at that - but this weekend the 'advisors' were online - despite the wall saying Mon - Fri etc etc - As I am fairly new to the site, I really cannot say that this is normal practice

I can only go on what it says on the forum

Latest

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?view=topic&catid=10&id=113432

...that is if there are face to face resources available or you are unable to travel or maybe, like me, don't go in for talking to strangers in any real depth about personal problems.

i live rurally too, but there is a miraculous new invention called the telephone.

hen my PIP form arrives, i will post it to the RNIB. they will phone me and we will complete the forms.
they then send them off.

so expert advice/help at no cost and without someone physically being present

many organisations offer this service