The Citizens Advice service works in partnership with other organisations across a range of services.
Debt and money advice
Financial inclusion
The Financial inclusion fund (FIF) comes from the Government’s Financial Inclusion Taskforce which provided £45million of funding to enable a step change in the availability of face-to-face debt advice to financially excluded clients.
The Citizens Advice service successfully bid to lead 10 of the projects in England and Wales, receiving funding from FIF. Of our 10 projects, two of these, in the East and South West, are delivered in partnership with Advice UK agencies. Collectively these projects will receive a total of £33million in funding from the Financial Inclusion Fund. Citizens Advice is the principle contract holder responsible for the delivery of the contract to the DTI. To achieve the actual delivery of the 10 projects, Citizens Advice has sub-contracted with 168 bureaux, a number of independent advice agencies and partners such as Shelter Cymru, RNIB, RNID, Mencap and Contact-a-Family.
Assisting lone parentsHorizons is a Barclaycard sponsored set of projects to assist lone parents, especially those in debt or struggling with finances. Citizens Advice is part of a consortium of charities involved, including One Parent Families, Parentline Plus, and the Family Welfare Association The aim of the programme is to support lone parents in making the transition out of poverty, debt and isolation, enabling them to make the most of their family lives. In September 2005 ten bureaux were selected to run six-month pilot projects to provide training and support for lone parents in the form of a health check with financial and debt advice. During October 2005- March 2006 bureaux provided group or one to one support sessions for a total 1,570 lone parents. A further estimated 5,000 lone parents have received publicity and information on financial capability issues. A range of information material has been produced and a data bank is being developed so that resources can be shared. Bureau have worked with a range of partners in order to reach the target group including Housing Associations, Prison Visitors Centres, Surestart and schools. |  |
Benefits and money advice service
This three-year Royal British Legion and RAF Benevolent Fund funded project will provide placements for full time holistic money advice and welfare benefit caseworkers in a number of bureaux throughout England and Wales.The project will focus on providing advice and support to Armed Forces personnel, Armed Forces veterans and their dependants.
Additional funding is also being provided to Citizens Advice to improve our services, develop related information in AdviserNet and  www.adviceguide.org.uk for ex-services personnel, enhance our social policy work in relation to serving personnel and veterans, and enhance our case management recording system in respect of this client group.
A publication to mark the first six months of the partnership has been produced. This sets out in greater detail the background to the partnership, the areas of the UK that the Benefits and Money Advice Service cover and the kind of cases that are being seen.
Equality and diversity
Citizens Advice is leading an innovative multi-agency UK wide partnership project Progress towards equality.
Funded by the European Commission, the Progress towards equality. project aims to develop anti-discrimination and human rights expertise, capacity and awareness for advisors and the general public through:
- bringing advice organisations together to exchange experience and identify local needs through regional and national steering groups and conferences.
- delivering locally relevant anti-discrimination and human rights training for generalist and specialist advisors at conference events.
- a user-friendly website for the public www.isthatdiscrimination.org.uk
- flyers, magazines and leaflets to inform people about their rights
- building an evidence base to inform the national Equality Commissions (EHRC, NIHRC, SCHR), national governments (UK, Scottish Executive, Welsh Assembly, NI Assembly), and national funders of legal advice.
Join us at one of the Progress towards equality conferences
Financial capability
Helping people like Tansy improve their
budgeting skills and stay out of debt. | Financial skills for lifeThe Financial Skills for Life (FSfL) programme was established by Citizens Advice in partnership with Prudential plc in April 2002. It was designed as a response to the Citizens Advice Bureaux evidence which showed how bureaux clients are often ill-equipped to make crucial financial decisions across a range of personal finance matters. Citizens Advice will continue to work with Prudential plc as a key partner in financial capability up to December 2008. Other partners are supporting the project, including Abbey Charitable Trust and Friends Provident Foundation. |
Free generic financial advice
In 2004, Citizens Advice ran the pilot Moneyplan project working with The Personal Finance Society (previously SOFA) to recruit Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) to volunteer to provide free generic financial advice for clients of eight Citizens Advice Bureaux.
The most successful model from the pilot was an IFA seeing clients by appointment on a weekly basis, in the bureau. Benefits of this model included a greater integration of the generic financial advice into the core service of bureaux and an ability to deal with the client's situation in an holistic way, with mutual referral.
An evaluation of the project recommended building on the success of the pilot, Citizens Advice should seek funding for a larger programme to further test the concept and address issues arising from the pilot.
With support from Barclays and AEGON UK, and in partnership with the Personal Finance Society (PFS) Citizens Advice is now able to roll the project out to test it with a larger number of bureaux. 28 bureaux have been selected to take part and working with PFS we have recruited suitably qualified IFAs to donate their time to volunteer with the bureaux.
Health
Supporting people affected by cancer
There are now over 20 Citizens Advice Bureaux across England who have a welfare benefits advice project funded by Macmillan Cancer Support. This amounts to around £3million of funding.
In the first quarter of establishing data collection via our case management system, eleven of the bureaux entered information. These initial statistics from bureaux showed that we had already assisted 2,086 people and had gained over £451,000 in benefits and payments from charities.
Following this successful start, Macmillan and Citizens Advice will continue to work together at an operational and strategic level to assist in the development of the projects. Macmillan will be working with a range of other charities in this next phase, as well as Citizens Advice, and will be looking to promote partnership working between voluntary sector groups at local level rather than just with bureaux. Their intention is to have a benefits project in place in every PCT by 2010, rolling out at 27 this year, and 35 a year after that.
Given the likelihood of more bureaux involvement at local level, it has been decided to continue the partnership between Citizens Advice and Macmillan with a slightly different emphasis Citizens Advice will no longer be involved in the local development of projects, which will lie with the Macmillan Development Managers who will be working to guidance provided by the central Macmillan Social Care team.
Housing and homelessness
The National homelessness advice service (NHAS) is a partnership between Shelter and Citizens Advice funded by the Communities and Local Government Department. The aim of the project is to minimise housing problems and prevent homelessness occurring by providing timely and effective advice, and ensuring good practice is developed by local authorities.
The service is offered to Citizens Advice Bureaux and 200 other frontline voluntary agencies across England.
Legal advice
Community legal service
The Citizens Advice service is part of the Community Legal Service (CLS) which was introduced by the Government as part of its reform of legal services. CLS aims to ensure that people can get information and advice about their legal rights and responsibilities and helps to enforce them.
The CLS is intended to make the supply of advice:
- more effective
- more consistent
- better quality
- available to more people who need it.
The CLS covers civil law, not criminal law, with a particular interest in improving access to social welfare law (for example, employment, debt, housing, immigration, welfare benefits).
It moves away from the idea of legal services being solely the province of courts and lawyers and encourages advice agency provision, new ways of providing services, and alternative methods of resolving disputes.
The main elements are:
- Civil legal aid contracting, funded from the CLS Fund, which replaces the legal aid budget
- the Quality Mark which is intended to ensure that the agencies within the CLS provide a high quality service
- increased use of IT.
The CLS was formally launched in April 2000.
Advice in prisons and probation settings
It costs £35,000 to keep someone in prison for a year, but over two thirds re-offend. Prisoners experience the same issues brought to bureaux generally, but have limited access to the means of sorting these problems out. Advice received on arrival and during a prison sentence can help to reduce the risk of re-offending on release.
The CAB service currently provides advice in 43 prisons and 29 probation settings. Bureau workers give generalist and holistic advice to prisoners on subjects including housing, debt and employment. Bureaux can also access specialist help, for example from solicitors, immigration officers and housing departments.
The service provides offenders with continuity throughout their sentence and on release. Our case management system allows clients’ details to pass securely between workers and sites, avoiding the repetition or loss of information. The presence of a CAB in prisons, probation settings and in the community can help an offender anywhere in the country.
Our Citizens Advice staff also work with the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) nationally and regionally. For example Citizens Advice chairs five of the Finance, Benefits and Debts strategic pathway groups and is represented on two national reference groups.
|
0.76mb)