Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

[Latch Key Kid]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Good.

BBC News - Coventry CAB starts a campaign to save it from closure

BBC News - Councils to decide Citizens Advice Bureau funding levels


at least CA have said something now. The Press Association: Citizens Advice warning over cuts

Hi

"At least CA have said something now" -

Amethyst.....please....I am still recovering from the shock of it all yesterday

[Latch Key Kid]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Hi

Not over

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/credit-...moretopstories

Be careful with the adverts and links

[Latch Key Kid]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Hi

Another one of those type of articles / reports

'Transition Fund within months' mentioned here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12378974

Is the tone changing just a little though?

Nice one Elisabeth.

[Amethyst]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

WiltshireCAB WiltsCitizensAdvice



Tomorrow at 9.30am in Westminster Hall there is Private Members’ Debate on Future funding of independent debt advice I hope MP's can attend...

[Nibbler]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

From MSE.

"Don't cut £25m of debt counselling – how to campaign against the Financial Inclusion Fund closure"

Over 100,000 people a year get help from the Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF), which provides money for non-profit debt counselling where there is none. Last week, however, the Treasury said the plug would be pulled from April. It’s a disgrace, the only problem is what to do about it?

Many of you have emailed me already with fury about this. The money is hugely important, especially to the wonderful Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), where just over 2/3 of this cash goes (see debt funding pulled MSE News) and to pull it now just seems ridiculous to me. For speed here’s a cut and paste of my quote when the decision came last week…

"This is a flabbergasting decision to cut the funding. Never has the country needed to provide decent debt help more than now. It is disgusting the funding rug is being pulled from under the feet of agencies such as Citizens Advice. Debt crisis and bankruptcy don’t tend to hit until after an economic downturn, and that means right now we’d expect peak demand, and it won’t get better for a long time. I hope this is just short-sightedness and will soon be addressed. If not, it is a kick in the teeth to everyone struggling."

This is a massive issue

The numbers on this speak for themselves:

• Over 135,089 people were declared insolved in 2010, the highest since records began in the 1960′s.
• The average person in the UK who has debts, has £16,307 of unsecured debts (non-mortgage).
• Citizens Advice alone took 9,500 new debt clients EVERY DAY last year.

Now in the big scheme of government spending, £25m a year is not a lot. It’s less than a third of what the Highways Agency spent on consultants alone between 2004-10 and a tiny fraction of the additional £800m the government will raise from the bank lobby this year.

Yet this small cash makes a massive difference and I suspect helps the economy far more than it costs, as it prevents bad debt defaults (through DMPs, which means some is repaid, but slowly and fairly).

How do we fight the fund closure?

The squeezing of debt counselling funding isn’t something new, we knew it was coming. Many have lobbied politicians already, I did it myself in my speeches last year at both Tory and Labour conferences. Yet the problem seems to be no-one is co-ordinating efforts to stop this happening.

So last week I made a decision to see if we could use the reach of MSE to help. We were planning to lead this week’s email on it, the difficulty came with exactly what we do. Some of the ideas were:

• Start a petition: We have considered doing a petition, but the Number10 website doesn’t allow them anymore, so it’d have to be one of our own, a Facebook page, or a GoPetition. The truth is unless we have over 100,000 its not enough and I’m worried we won’t manage that and it’d actually be as damaging as a damp squib.
• Ask people to write to MPs: I’m slightly nervous of this as we did it for financial education a few weeks ago, but it was effective then. The problem with this is that it’s a Treasury budget decision, so I’m not sure we’d be targeting the right people.
• Start a social networking campaign: See if we can get this around Twitter and Facebook to get people aware of what’s happening and build a groundswell of public opinion.
• Ask people to donate: These are all charities (even the CAB) but not many realise that, so telling people that and asking if they can afford that they donate would be a practical way to raise funds.
• Do an MSE 50p campaign: On the back of the above, for those who can’t donate, in the past i.e. for the Haiti disaster, we’ve given money on top of the usual MSE charity fund, (which already includes debt counselling) by donating 50p for each genuine new recipient of the weekly email – we could do this for the CAB. This way those who can’t afford to donate can spread the message and feel they’re doing something (see other click and give models).

As none of these feel 100% like they’re what’s needed I’ve tried to put some feelers out there amongst friendly politicians to see if there are any big hitting members of the government who may be willing to take up the cause and focus on doing it with them.

So we’re holding out from doing anything for a week. While we wait to see what happens, we may well do some of the above, but I’d really appreciate any other thoughts or creative ideas (those with political lobbying experience are more than welcome).

Comment and Discuss

[Amethyst]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Cool.

Any news back from this morning's debate that we know of ?

CATHERINE McKINNELL | Tyneside MP speaks out in Commons on future of debt advice in Newcastle
'Uncertainty and confusion' over independent debt advice: ePolitix.com

[Nibbler]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Cool.

Any news back from this morning's debate that we know of ?

It was available online earlier.

I hope it still is, as I haven't had a chance to see it yet. I'll pop and have a look to see....

EDIT:

Video of it here:

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Pl...meetingId=7542


Hansard transcript here:

http://www.publications.parliament.u...l/01.htm#d2e32

[Amethyst]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Nice one, I'll get a coffee Thanks xx

[Latch Key Kid]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Hi

Very interesting viewing with the Labour people getting the subject and their points across pretty well I thought.

Pretty shocking stuff from the Liberal lady in green though who basically in my opinion had little or no idea what she was actually talking about (still trying to work out what she meant by the debt mamagement plan for six months and then going bankrupt - I think she said this at one point). Bet she will not at all enjoy watching a replay of her performance today.

The Liberal chap started confidently enough but lost his cool, seemed to collapse and then sort of changed his mind two thirds of the way through.

One or two complimen'tory' stooge type cameo acts thrown in as well just for the laugh

The fee chargers seemed to come in for an all round pasting with the OFT reports mentioned.

An internet based self help tool backed up by telephone advice is nowhere near enough and is no substitute for face to face advice and assistance.

A blindfolded juggler on the hiighwire without a safety net just about sums the situation up for me

Hope somebody see's sense and soon, starting to think the worst though.

What a potential disaster in the making.

Like the muffled idea about referring people in debt to their MPs though (those that are for the cuts that is )

Just my opinions

[Amethyst]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

This self help thing and telephone advice, no it isn't any comparison for face to face advice (with the actual paperwork laid out on the table)....I do think CCCS and CAB (or CFEC) etc should consider branching out to forums - it is a fantastic resource and can be controlled for their purposes with good moderation, registration and privacy settings and trained advisers. CCCS looked into it over a year ago but nothing seems to have happened.

I'd much rather face to face was available though. the thing that hit me from yesterday is they didn't seem to have any solution to offer and the end result seemed to be 'I've written a letter' ????????

[Nibbler]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

MSE News article - MPs' anger at debt advice cuts

[Latch Key Kid]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

This self help thing and telephone advice, no it isn't any comparison for face to face advice (with the actual paperwork laid out on the table)....I do think CCCS and CAB (or CFEC) etc should consider branching out to forums - it is a fantastic resource and can be controlled for their purposes with good moderation, registration and privacy settings and trained advisers. CCCS looked into it over a year ago but nothing seems to have happened.

I'd much rather face to face was available though. the thing that hit me from yesterday is they didn't seem to have any solution to offer and the end result seemed to be 'I've written a letter' ????????

Hi

Interesting Post Amethyst

I think there is still some behind the scenes work going on, maybe with a surprise or two also.... somewhere down the line.

[Amethyst]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

lol, I sense you know a bit more than you are letting on on that one LKK xx I hate suprises

[Latch Key Kid]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Hi

Another couple of BBC articles here -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12403947

And here -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12394034

Big Society / We are all in it together


PS - Nice one Amethyst x

[Amethyst]

Re: Citizens Advice staff facing redundancies

Should be

Big Society / We are all in SH it together