|
|
 |
| |
Call centre no substitute for effective CAB staff
• CONCERNING redundancies at the Kentish Town CAB (Hard-pressed citizens’ advice staff could lose their jobs, June 18).
Camden’s advice and legal services are part of our rich heritage.
Camden has traditionally spent more on these than elsewhere, but this has been justified by the social inequalities within the borough.
The true character of the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat council coalition was revealed in 2006 by their proposal to reduce funding for these services by 40 per cent.
As a result of an effective community campaign, this was scaled down to 28 per cent.
The Camden CAB are proposing to make experienced staff redundant and replace them by trained volunteers.
A call centre will replace a walk-in service in Kentish Town. Trained volunteers may be able to offer tea and sympathy, but not the quality advice necessary to keep those affected by the recession in their homes, to retain their jobs, or to access welfare benefits.
Mortgage repossessions increased by 40 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
The government’s mortgage rescue scheme has had limited impact.
In this complex area of the law prompt legal intervention is essential to prevent home owners from being evicted.
The current council is more concerned with outputs, rather than outcomes.
While a call centre may be able to offer more acts of assistance, it will not achieve the same outcomes for those who are helped.
This dumbing down of the service will have a particular impact on the more vulnerable sections of the community, namely the old, the disabled, those with mental health problems or those for whom English is not their first language.
The sad reality is that this council is not interested in high quality public services.
What they destroy during their four-year tenure in Camden will take much longer to rebuild.
Robert Latham
Mornington Terrace, NW1
Do they really care?
• AT a time of recession and when commercial firms are pulling out of legal aid, there is a huge premium on properly-funded, local, non-profit advice services.
It is with dismay though that I learn that the Kentish Town CAB has had its money cut by the Liberal Democrat/ Conservative council.
Candidates for office and indeed local government politicians can blame central government for many things – it is a path well worn in Camden – but the true test of your views comes when it is within your or your local party’s power to decide.
It is Lib Dem/ Tory policies that have meant that, in a recession and when local residents need them the most, the CAB is having to lay off workers, with the result that there are massive queues outside their office.
How has a progressive borough like Camden got to this state?
Do the Lib Dems and Tories not care?
Raj Chada
Leighton Place, NW5
Hub for the community
• I AM outraged to hear that the immensely popular face-to-face advice service at Kentish Town CAB will be cut as part of a wider policy which will include replacing experienced legal advisers with volunteers and effectively closing it and turning it into a call centre.
Almost every morning I walk from my house to the high street and I see dozens of people queueing outside the CAB centre, desperately waiting for the advice centre to open.
Many members in my family and in community regularly use the CAB.
For example, I have taken my mother there many times over the past decade since my family moved to the area.
The hard-working staff have provided invaluable advice and support to my mother on issues, such as benefits, welfare and housing.
Without those experienced staff the quality of my family’s life would have been adversely affected.
Anyone who lives in Kentish Town will know what a vital hub the CAB is for the local community, in particular people from the Somali and Bengali communities who benefit from the free, confidential and impartial advice experienced CAB caseworkers provide them.
Kentish Town CAB is such an invaluable resource for the local community as it provides advice on critical areas: social funds, debts, housing repairs and benefits and council tax.
I am deeply concerned what this will mean for local people.
People rely on the CAB. It is a vital community and advice centre, and if the drop-in sessions and face-to-face advice service were cut, this would no doubt be an utter disaster for many of the most vulnerable and in need people in our community.
Your report that, on average, 65 people visit the centre every day. But anyone who lives in Kentish Town will know that far more people than that need these services.
The idea of transferring all that responsibility to volunteers at call centres is ridiculous. We need trained professionals whether it be legal advisers or case workers. In a time of recession, we should be thinking not of cutting back on key services but on spending our way out of this recession.
The people of Kentish Town deserve better.
Ismail Einashe
Azania Mews, NW5
Volunteers
• I WAS dismayed by the portrayal of the work of volunteers (Hard-pressed Citizens Advice staff could lose their jobs, June 18).
According to one of the sources you quote, who is not named, the suggestion that volunteers could cope with the range and complexity of the problems faced by clients in Camden is “a joke”.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The Citizens Advice service has long relied on volunteers. Of the 26,000 people who currently work in the service, 20,000 are volunteers. Last year alone we helped two million people to solve six million new problems, and we simply couldn’t have done it without the help of local volunteers who – I might add – also benefit personally from the new skills they acquire.
Whether a client is seen by an adviser who is a paid member of staff or an adviser who is a volunteer makes no difference. Both are trained to the same high standards and the quality of the advice they give is the same.
If Camden CAB does move towards a greater reliance on volunteers, I can categorically reassure members of the public that the service they receive will not suffer as a result.
Janet Le Patourel
Area Director, England South Citizens Advice
Professional guidance
• I READ with dismay the article (Hard-pressed citizens’ advice staff could lose their jobs, June 18) about the prospects for the Camden Advice Bureau in Kentish Town to be replaced by a call centre.
Whenever I pass the CAB during opening hours, there are throngs of people waiting to be seen.
In a recession, the need to haul people back from the brink (homelessness, bankruptcy, or unemployment) is ever more acute.
How can distressed clients cope with a call centre (frustrating for most of us)?
The idea of discussing your private affairs in a supermarket is hardly more reassuring.
Permanent CAB staff can assess cases and take notes to use the time of volunteer professionals, for example solicitors, more effectively. Clients are often confused and distraught with no idea where to turn, so need to talk face-to-face: these are often people on the brink.
A wealth of informative pamphlets are also available in the existing office, with even a few toys for the children. Kentish Town is a major residential centre of the borough, and does not connect well with either Kilburn or Holborn, which are both it seems, to keep their offices.
It is funding at the bottom of this, with the threats made last year now being carried out.
DEIRDRE KRYMER
Dartmouth Park Hill, N19
|
 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
