Since 2020, demand for Salford’s Welfare Rights and Debt Advice service has risen sharply due to the cost‑of‑living crisis, increasing the need for early, specialist intervention to prevent escalating health and social care issues. To meet this need, a partnership model has funded specialist posts across services and created direct referral routes to local welfare assistance.
Overview
Salford’s Welfare Rights and Debt Advice Service (WRADAS) has long supported low‑income households and plays a central role in the city’s anti‑poverty work. Since 2020, demand for the service has risen sharply due to the cost‑of‑living crisis. A partnership model has funded specialist posts across homelessness and domestic abuse services, public health, and primary care, and created direct referral routes through Salford Assist, which administers the Household Support Fund. This model facilitates early, specialist intervention to prevent financial difficulties escalating into further crises and health and social care issues.
Homelessness and Domestic Abuse Pathways
In early 2023, Salford Supported Tenancies recognised the added value of supporting people threatened with rough sleeping to better manage debt and benefit problems, and funded two posts in the WRADAS to work specifically with that group. People are referred directly into the service with the aim of addressing the financial problems that make tenancy sustainment difficult for those with a history of rough sleeping.
Advisers work closely with tenancy support workers to provide long‑term solutions to problem debt and assist with the management of benefit claims, which have historically been difficult for clients who move in and out of benefits due to sanctions or health‑related issues.
In just under three years, the project has supported 570 people threatened with rough sleeping to increase benefit income by just over £1 million, and assisted with grants and debt write‑off worth £890,000.
Collaboration between expert advisers and support workers has meant that clients with a history of sanctions and unsuccessful benefit claims have been successfully flagged with the DWP to avoid conditionality and sanctions in future, removing a major barrier to maintaining future tenancies.
The approach has been replicated with a further post supporting non‑UK nationals with benefit issues, and a debt adviser providing support through the Support in Safe Accommodation pathway to victims/survivors of domestic abuse. This work is strengthened by the service’s participation in Surviving Economic Abuse’s pilot of an Economic Abuse Evidence Form, designed to help survivors achieve better outcomes with creditors without needing to repeatedly explain their situation.
Local welfare assistance
Building on existing links, the WRADAS have worked to better join-up with Salford Assist, who administer the council’s local welfare provision and the Household Support Fund (the Crisis and Resilience Fund from April 2026).
Where people approach for debt and benefits advice while in an immediate financial crisis, advisers are able to access emergency payments urgently. For those approaching the council for emergency financial support, Salford Assist use their financial assessment process to identify where applicants are struggling due to benefit and debt problems, and can offer a direct referral for help with these issues, with the aim of providing longer term solutions to prevent repeat applications.
In 2025 101 people were referred to the service for specialist advice following an assessment by Salford Assist, and this group gained £242,000 in debt write off and additional income on top of the emergency support payments they received.
GP Surgeries and Public Health Funded Posts
Salford City Council and NHS Salford Clinical Commissioning Group recognise the importance of investment into advice and information services in the city. For many years, the Welfare Rights service has been funded to provide specialist welfare rights advice in a Primary Care Network covering 7 GP practices within the city. This model was an early adopter of the now recognised national good practice of embedding access to social welfare advice in health settings.
More recently, Public Health in Salford have funded the service to help meet the rising demand for debt advice, with the service increasingly working with individuals who have problem debt which has a significant impact on their mental health, and leaves them struggling to afford essentials such as food and heating, contributing further physical health problems.
This approach has helped the service to reach hundreds of households where illness and disability was a significant cause of poverty. In 2025, advisers linked to GP surgeries dealt with 674 people and assisted with verified benefit gains of £2.3 million. The public health funded debt advisers assisted 318 households, with £1.47 million in gains, mostly through debt write off.
Pensioner Take‑Up
In a targeted initiative to improve the financial wellbeing of older residents, Cabinet agreed to invest into WRADAS with the primary objective to increase the take-up of pensioner benefits through dedicated specialist welfare rights advice, outreach and support. Total investment is £406,251 which pays for 3 full time Welfare Rights Officers (WRO) for 3 years, due to end in March 2027. Since February 2024 over £5.7 million in additional benefits has been secured for pensioners by the team.
The offer has been widely promoted through a range of health, social care and community groups in the VCSE and the team has undertaken significant communications and outreach activity. The response has been hugely positive with requests for advice coming from self-referrals, family members and professionals, particularly the contact team in Adult Social Care as part of the prevent, reduce, delay approach within the Care Act.
Beyond the financial metrics, the project delivered significant non financial outcomes social value assessed by talking to people we have advised through exit surveys:
- Reduced financial stress and improved quality of life for older residents.
- Improvements in mental wellbeing, financial security, and reduced demand on health services.
- Increased independence and stability for vulnerable pensioners.
- Enhanced trust in the local welfare services and improved community engagement.
Pensioners often face complex barriers to accessing entitlements. Helping them unlock benefits can lead to substantial financial gains and improved wellbeing and further targeted work is being delivered in partnership with the Primary Care Network.
Contact Sean Finnegan, Strategic Operations Manager, Welfare Rights and Debt Advice Service: [email protected]