Tom Gordon MP celebrates 20,000th piece of Casework for Harrogate and Knaresborough residents
The Office of Tom Gordon, Member of Parliament for Harrogate and Knaresborough has passed a major milestone, processing their 20,000th piece of casework just over two years after being elected.
The number of requests to MP’s offices skyrocketed after the pandemic. His constituency team now take on thousands of individual cases a year, representing residents to dozens of institutions, companies, and government departments.
The work runs alongside Mr Gordon’s duties in Westminster. He is required to spend much of his week on the ground in London when the Parliament is sitting- voting on laws, speaking in debates and scrutinising legislation, while a full team of caseworkers ensure responses to the scores of weekly requests.
When a resident hits a wall with a government department, the council, the NHS, a landlord or a utility company, and cannot get anywhere on their own, they can bring the problem to Tom. The office then takes it up on their behalf, chases the organisation involved and pushes for an answer or resolution.
Tom’s Senior Caseworker, Chris Howden, explained that in a typical week the team works on a vast range of issues including housing, benefits, visas, council tax, environmental problems, and anti-social behaviour.
“Some cases are sorted out with a single email. Others run for months.” He said.
Recent wins for Harrogate and Knaresborough constituents include:
- Winning £22,000 for a constituent’s son from the Department of Work and Pensions
- Making sure a widow received her husband’s pension in full
- Supporting a victim of a workplace GDPR breach
- Securing a permanent home for and reuniting a mother with her children living in a caravan without electricity or running water
- Reinstating someone’s care hours after NYC cut them
- Secured a constituent’s top school place for their daughter
- Making sure multiple constituents received their driving licences following delays in the DVLA medical tea
Tom is keen for even more residents to know that their MP is someone they can turn to, with those who stand to gain the most from it and vulnerable constituents often being the least likely to realise they can ask.
Tom said:
“Twenty thousand cases mean twenty thousand times somebody in Harrogate or Knaresborough needed a person in their corner.
“Some of it changes lives, like keeping a family in their home. Some of it is a smaller thing that nobody else would have picked up.
“We treat all of it as important, because to the person sitting in front of us it is. I am proud of my team for getting here so quickly, and we are not slowing down.”
Chris Howden, Senior Caseworker, said:
“Behind every one of these 20,000 cases is a constituent who turned to us for help.
“We are a small team, but we are proud of how many people we have been able to support, and we will keep working every day to make a real difference for local residents.”