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Restore the grant to Citizens Advice
Many turn to the CAB for help and as this demand increases so must its funding, argues Frank Dobson
LAST Friday evening, Camden Citizens’ Advice Bureau organised a celebration for the volunteers who help provide the service for the rest of us.
It was a good do and I was very glad to be there and put on record my admiration for the CAB – both the volunteers and the paid staff. They provide invaluable help to local people with an immense variety of problems, housing, debt, jobs, benefits, schools, loan sharks, rogue traders, insurance or tax.
Sometimes the problems are extremely complex, in other cases it’s more a case of explaining what people are entitled to.
I know from my own advice services, postbag, telephone calls and emails, just how many people turn to the CAB for help and how dependable they are.
That’s why I sometimes refer people to the CAB.
For their part CAB staff sometimes ask me to take up especially difficult cases with government ministers or to press for a change in the law.
A lot of the advisory work is done by volunteers and lots of people volunteer.
But even with the best will in the world you can’t just turn up and dish out advice. To get on the training programme, volunteers face an interview and a test.
Then they have to put in two days a week on-the-job training for one-and-a-half years and then if they make it they get an Advice Certificate.
On Friday, 14 volunteers, introduced by Liz Barclay of BBCRadio 4’s You and Yours received their certificates from the Mayor of Camden, Councillor Omar Faruque Ansari.
They were a real cross-section of Camden people including a shop worker, a lawyer, catering and bar workers, students, a receptionist, a musician and a former property lawyer. Women and men, black, Asian and white, they all have something in common.
They want to help people in need and are prepared to learn how best to do it.
They are the sort of people who make the world go round, who make Camden the place it is.
They recognise that if we want to make sure people have somewhere decent to live, have a job to go to, a school for their children, health care when they need it then we have to work together to provide it.
They believe that civilised human behaviour means caring about what happens to other people. And not just caring but actually doing something about it.
They also recognise that the service the CAB provides cannot be provided just by volunteers, however committed they may be.
It also depends on a bedrock of equally-committed, highly-skilled, paid, staff who recruit, train, support, supervise and advise the volunteers, ensure that standards are being maintained and generally run the whole outfit.
All this costs money and, quite frankly, Camden CAB isn’t getting enough to keep providing the quality of service local people are accustomed to.
And the standard really is high.
Over the last year, our local CAB was chosen as Volunteer Organisation of the Year by both the Camden Volunteer Centre and University College London, with one volunteer getting a special award sponsored by Abbey Santander.
Just a week ago two Camden volunteers won national Volunteer of the Year Awards as Best Adviser and best Social Policy Worker against competition from more than 400 CABs nationwide.
Unfortunately, since 2006, long before the “credit crunch” the Liberal Democrat/Tory council have made substantial cuts in the budget for the Camden CAB.
We hear a lot about the need to protect “front-line services” but this service doesn’t just need protecting, it needs to have its grant restored.
The CAB really is in the front line, especially now having to deal with the casualties of the recession, created by the greedy bankers, the job losses and more people finding it difficult to make ends meet, all on top of the housing problems caused by the sale of vacant flats by the council and housing associations.
The demand for the services of the CAB is increasing.
The funding must be increased to match it.
But that isn’t happening. The funding from the council is lower now than it was in 2006.
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