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Lib Dems break ranks over advice centre cuts
Citizens Advice Bureau chief warns of a ‘step backwards’
LIB-Dem councillors in Kentish Town have broken ranks with their party over the escalating row about the future of funding for Camden’s Community Law Centre and Citizens Advice Bureaux.
Councillors Phil Thompson, Faraque Ansari and by-election hopeful Ralph Scott, have written to deputy council leader Conservative councillor Andrew Marshall, voicing fears that cutting funds would be a mistake.
Cllr Thompson, elected in May, said he could not support cuts of around 40 per cent to voluntary advice centres budgets.
He visited the Kentish Town CAB and the Law Centre last week to find out about the work they do – and is lobbying his Lib Dem and Conservative colleagues.
He said: “If these proposals reduce the service significantly I will have to oppose them. They both do a good job and are worth preserving.”
The announcement that the three are breaking ranks comes just three weeks before the Kentish Town ward by-election.
Labour responded by claiming their rivals were trying to claw back some political ground.
Councillor Theo Blackwell said: “The Lib Dems have not said anything before. It is interesting. They are speaking up now because there is a by-election.”
The plans, due to be ratified by the council’s executive in January, would see cash going to advice centres cut by around 40 per cent. Both the Law centre and the CAB say these cuts would mean running a skeleton CAB service and closing the law centre completely.
Stuart Chadbourne, chief executive of the CAB, said the plans to slash budgets would cost the Town Hall more in the long term.
Figures seen by the New Journal show the CAB gave financial advice to 1,700 people with combined debts of out £28.4m in the past six months – and 40 per cent of this cash was owed directly to the Town Hall in unpaid rent and council tax.
The average figure of personal debt in Camden stands at £16,000 – well above the national average – while these figures also do not take into account the post Christmas figures, the busiest time for the Advice Bureaux debt counsellors.
Mr Chadbourne said: “We help people with a huge amount of debt problems and most people in debt we know pay the creditor who shouts the loudest – like credit card companies and door step collectors. When an individual comes to the CAB we prioritise their debts, rent and council tax. We explain what should be prioritised because they could lose their home or end in court. This means we help recover money owed to the council and save them thousands of pounds by doing so.
“If we are unable to see as many clients not only are they leaving people and families without help they are having a detrimental effect on their own revenue streams.”
He added that plans to use cash previously earmarked for CABs on establishing credit unions would be a “step backwards”.
He said: “If they take money away from the CAB which currently has a huge impact on financial inclusion through its debt advice to fund the Credit Union then its new priority will at best be a neutral step forward and we would argue that actually it would be a step backwards.”
And he also added that Mr Chadbourne added: “We saw 35,000 clients last year, if we only see 60 per cent of our clients next year that would mean 14,000 people would not get help with their problems – where are they going to go to get help?”
Conservative leader councillor Andrew Marshall said the plans had the backing of the executive.
He said: “We are unanimously signed up to the executive paper we produced in September detailing these plans. There is a by-election and it is right that members express the concerns of their constituents, but in a commissioning process it is impossible to know the outcome.” |
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