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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is committed to pushing forward joint teams involving pension service visiting staff and social services finance officers (and ultimately housing benefit staff too). The spin is that information about older people's finances can be shared, saving unnecessary home visits; benefit take-up can be increased; and multi-skilled workers can do assessments for home care charges alongside benefit claims.

The reality is different.

The DWP claims that 30 local authorities have joint teams already, but the definition seems stretched to include councils which have merely agreed in principle to consider the option or which are working with the DWP without any merged service being developed.

I am also getting feedback that the service for the customer is definitely not what is in the PR brochure. These are just some of the individual reports coming back from a few of the authorities that have joint teams.

• In one council, the joint team staff from the local authority side are unhappy with the emphasis on detecting and preventing fraud. Their training was unsatisfactory as it was geared towards the kind of procedural stuff that DWP benefit assessors need.
• Another joint team refused to help a client who was seen as a borderline case for disability living allowance and they advised the claimant that they would not get it. The social worker concerned feels that this showed that DWP staff pre-judge clients and cherry-pick only those claims with the highest chance of success. In this case, the social worker went ahead with the claim, which was successful.
• In another authority, clients are advised, after a joint team visit, that they can go to independent agencies such as Age Concern for help in appealing. This is good, as it recognises the need for independent advocacy. However, social workers have reported that clients are not in practice pursuing this advice because the clients are putting great and unreasonable faith in being given correct advice by the DWP staff in the joint team.

Joint teams, under the Link-Age banner created by the DWP, are presented as the only way forward for benefit take-up. But joint working is having perhaps more success than the bureaucratic joint team structure to which the DWP is committed.

In a rural authority in the Midlands, a partnership has been set up to fight poverty among older people. It involves the fire service, social services, housing, police, a home safety agency, trading standards, ambulance service, a home repairs service, the primary care trust and several voluntary sector agencies. The partnership delivers:

• Free smoke detectors fitted by the fire service as part of a home fire safety check.
• Grants for home energy conservation or heating.
• Access to specialist falls nurses.
• Home safety and security advice and equipment
• Benefits advice.

That local authority is clearly delivering a joined-up service to older and disabled people beyond the pension service's Link-Age aspirations. It is interesting to note that the local pension service has declined to become a partner in this scheme, although it has often been invited to join.

Gary Vaux is head of money advice, Hertfordshire Council. He is unable to answer queries by post or telephone. If you have a question to be answered please write to him c/o Community Care