Over the coming weeks and months Bristol City Council will be making more of its services,

information, advice and guidance available online. This is part of an ongoing ambition to make things

easier, more accessible and convenient for the citizens of Bristol. This will be supported by our new

Citizen Service Point (CSP) at 100 Temple Street opening in mid-December which citizens will access by

appointment only.

This briefing pack is designed to help you give the best information to your service users and help them

get what they need themselves or to access support in a different way.

This pack contains information on changes to the following services:

Housing Benefits

Local Tax

Concessionary Travel (bus passes)

Birth and Death Registrations

Housing Advice and Assessment (homelessness)

Briefing sheet - Housing Benefits

www.bristol.gov.uk/nav/benefits-and-financial-help

What’s happening?

Over the coming weeks and months Bristol City Council will be making more of its services, information, advice

and guidance available online. This is part of an ongoing ambition to make things easier, more accessible and

convenient for the citizens of Bristol. This briefing note is designed to help you give the best information to your

clients and help them get what they need themselves or access support.

Housing Benefits – what do I need to know?

We are developing our Housing Benefits Service to:

Improve our online offer

Improve the citizen experience

Use clearer and more simple language

When will this happen?

The vast majority of these changes are already underway ready for the opening of our new Citizen Service Point

at 100 Temple Street in mid-December.

Who can I contact to find out more?

Paul Hill, Bristol City Council via paul.hill@bristol.gov.uk

Our letters

We are going to send fewer letters but there are times when we are required by legislation to send a letter. We also know some citizens are not able to access or make use of online services. What’s changing?

Our letters have been improved using plain English to make them easier to understand

Where we have a particularly complex situation our assessors will call the citizen to explain what is in the letter

Our website

We’re adding lots of new information and functionality to our website to help citizens and improve their experience when they deal with us.

What’s changing?

It will be easier to navigate

There is an ‘explain my letter’ annotated example letter to guide citizens

More online self-serve options Improvements to the claim forms and evidence

upload form Information, advice and guidance that makes

sense

Briefing sheet - Local Tax

www.bristol.gov.uk/page/council-tax/council-tax-and-business-rates-online-services

What’s happening?

Over the coming weeks and months Bristol City Council will be making more of its services, information, advice

and guidance available online. This is part of an ongoing ambition to make things easier, more accessible and

convenient for the citizens of Bristol. This briefing note is designed to help you give the best information to your

clients and help them get what they need themselves or access support.

Local Tax – what do I need to know?

We are developing our Local Tax offer to:

Enable 57,000 citizens to pay by direct debit

Improve our bill and letters to make them easier to understand

More online forms to apply for discounts and exemptions

When will this happen?

The student online form went live in September. The online Council Tax direct debit will launch at the end of

Feb/early March 2015.

Who can I contact to find out more?

Tim Potter, Council tax team leader via tim.potter@bristol.gov.uk

For our website

We’re adding lots of new information and functionality to our website to help citizens and improve their experience. What’s changing?

Online self-serve options – including claim forms, evidence upload form, pay, direct debit, calculators etc

Bills and letters will be much easier to understand

More online forms – student council tax, landlords

empty property, deceased, band reductions

Information, advice and guidance that makes sense

Specific sections for citizens struggling to pay

council tax

Easy to use flow diagrams to make sense of the

processes involved

Briefing sheet - Concessionary Travel (bus passes)

www.bristol.gov.uk/page/transport-and-streets/bus-pass-travelcard

What’s happening?

Over the coming weeks and months Bristol City Council will be making more of its services, information, advice

and guidance available online. This is part of an ongoing ambition to make things easier, more accessible and

convenient for the citizens of Bristol. This briefing note is designed to help you give the best information to your

clients and help them get what they need themselves or access support in a different way.

Concessionary Travel (bus passes) – what do I need to know?

We are:

Changing the ways that citizens need to provide evidence (proof of address, ID etc) to us and enabling

more people to do things for themselves online

Launching an online web-form application for older person’s bus passes

Improving the experience for our citizens by giving them better information and services online

Redesigning the Blue Badge renewal form to make it simpler and easier to use

Making it clear that citizens don’t need to bring original documents in all cases

Simplifying our paper forms so that those that need to use them have a better experience

When will this happen?

The online web application and changes to web information on our existing website will launch in early

December. Our changes to the way that citizens provide evidence to us are already in place.

Who can I contact to find out more?

Kathryn Manning, Concessionary Travel Project Manager via kathryn.manning@bristol.gov.uk

Briefing sheet - Birth and Death Registrations

www.bristol.gov.uk/nav/births-deaths-and-marriages

What’s happening?

Over the coming weeks and months Bristol City Council will be making more of its services, information, advice

and guidance available online. This is part of an ongoing ambition to make things easier, more accessible and

convenient for the citizens of Bristol. This briefing note is designed to help you give the best information to your

clients and help them get what they need themselves or access support in a different way.

Birth and Death Registrations – what do I need to know?

We are:

Improving the citizen experience

Going to make it easy to book appointments with a Registrar

online

Replacing the need to call the council by providing a choice of booking channels

When will this happen?

The vast majority of these changes are already underway ready for being launched for public use in early 2015.

Who can I contact to find out more?

Jess Phoursa, Bristol City Council via jessica.phoursa@bristol.gov.uk

For our website

As well as improving the information on our website for registering a birth or a death, we have worked with citizens to design an online booking form to help citizens and improve their experience. What’s changing?

New online self-serve options Clear and smart web forms to guide citizens easily

through the process of booking an appointment Signposts to information, advice and guidance

relevant to their search

24/7 access to online the booking channel to

improve the citizen experience

Email confirmation following the booking of an

appointment

Self-check-in capability at Register Offices

Briefing sheet – Housing advice and assessment (homelessness)

www.bristol.gov.uk/page/housing/homelessness-and-prevention

What’s happening?

Over the coming weeks and months Bristol City Council will be making more of its services, information, advice

and guidance available online. This is part of an ongoing ambition to make things easier, more accessible and

convenient for the citizens of Bristol. This briefing note is designed to help you give the best information to your

clients and help them get what they need themselves or access support in a different way.

Housing Advice and Assessment (Homelessness) – what do I need to know?

We have redesigned our Housing Advice and Assessment Service (Homelessness) to:

Enable citizens to access better quality information, advice and guidance on-line

Make it easier for citizens to check eligibility for support

Citizens will be able to complete an initial homelessness assessment online at our new CSP at 100

Temple Street if an assessment is deemed necessary

Citizens can get everything they need in one location

For our website

Our homelessness pages are now easier to read and digest and better suited to citizen’s life events e.g.

End of a tenancy, eviction or landlord problems

Abuse, violence or harassment

Drug or alcohol problems

Relationship breakdown

Refugee or asylum seeker What’s changing? On-line self-check tool

This simple tool enables citizens to check their

situation against a series of eligibility

questions - it advises them what to do as a

result of the answers they give.

It avoids the need for citizens to go to straight

to a CSP.

It either directs the citizen to information,

advice & guidance or onto an assessment of

their needs.

An online self-check tool now replaces the need for citizens to make unnecessary journeys to CSPs.

We’ll have support available in 100 Temple Street CSP to complete an initial assessment digitally if this is deemed necessary

We’ll invite citizens to a full assessment meeting with specialists where appropriate.

When will this happen?

These changes will be ready for the opening of our new

Citizen Service Point at 100 Temple Street in mid-

December. If the citizen has a support worker, then it is

still expected that the support worker/ partner agency

refers them directly into the Housing Advice Team

service in the same way that is done now. This team

remains referral only.

Who can I contact to find out more?

Gillian Douglas, Bristol City Council via

Gillian.Douglas@bristol.gov.uk (Service Manager)