FROM quick enquiries to residents in crisis, last year Citizen’s Advice Wiltshire helped 18,500 people – with more than 350 of these being in Westbury.
When lockdown measures were introduced in March, the service transitioned from providing a 50/50 face to face and digital service to 100% digital in less than a few weeks.
At present it provides advice digitally – over the phone, by email, webchat and online – and all staff and volunteers are working from home.
CAW spokesperson Claire Waltham-Smith explained the service deals with all sorts of issues.
“We manage complex cases, and we deal with quick and simple queries, as well as everything in between.,” she told White Horse News.
“We know people need different types of support at various times in their life.
“One of our greatest strengths as a service is the flexibility to deal with most issues that people come to us with and we tailor our advice to each person’s needs, whatever stage their problem may have reached or level of support needed.”
Claire said residents come to them with quick questions: eg, they might want to double-check a piece of information or ensure they’ve chosen the best course of action, and after ensuring there aren’t any further underlying issues, the service is likely to support them through signposting or self-help, enabling them to deal with their query quickly and effectively.
Some clients come when problems have initially arisen – for others, their situation may rest on a knife edge. Claire says, “We help people that have reached a real crisis point and need urgent help. They may have bailiffs due that day, their energy is about to be disconnected or their home repossessed. It may have taken a lot of personal courage to decide to take action. These clients will likely need more specialist advice and support.
“Sometimes people have more than one issue they need help with and we understand the way people’s problems can interact and overlap.”
When CAW helps with a quick/simple query the client’s full profile information – for example address details – is not collected as it would generally take longer to record this information than to answer the person’s query.
That is particularly relevant when stats are broken down to specific areas. In other words, the figures do not include any quick /simple queries, so it would be reasonable to assume that more people would have been helped than the figures show.
So stats are based on where a valid postcode was recorded for any of the town’s five wards.
Between April 2019 and April 2020 the recorded 354 Westbury residents were supported with over 1,000 (1,078) issues.
The top five issues people sought advice on last year were benefits and tax credits, including Universal Credit and disability benefits, debt, employment, housing, relationship and family problems.
These five issues accounted for almost 80% (79.22%) of all issues Westbury residents sought advice on last year.
Forty-six per cent of people reported having either a disability or long term health condition.
Of the 18,500 people supported last year with over 45,000 advice issues, 14,690 “unique” clients (i.e. counted once regardless of how many times they needed advice) were given full advice and a further 3,824 people were helped with a quick /simple query.
80 years of help – starting from a horse box
The Citizens Advice service has helped people solve problems for 80 years. The first 200 Citizens Advice Bureaux opened on 4th September 1939, the day after the outbreak of WWII, and during the war a horse box was used as a mobile unit to travel to towns and cities that had been bombed.
Today, a network of over 270 independent local Citizens Advice charities offers confidential advice online, over the phone, by email and in person, for free – from over 2,550 locations across England and Wales.
The current charity Wiltshire Citizens Advice, which covers the same geographical area as Wiltshire unitary authority, evolved from the merger in 2010 of the county’s four local Citizens Advice charities.
Today, the service has over 100 volunteers (who generally volunteer one day a week) and around 50 paid staff, many of whom are part time.
Claire said, “We know we can all face problems that seem complicated or intimidating at times. At Citizens Advice, we believe no-one should have to face these problems without good quality, independent advice.
“That’s why we’re here, to give people the knowledge and confidence they need to find their way forward – whoever they are and whatever their problem. We’ve done this for everyone, for 80 years.”
All CAW offices are temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Claire said, “We are working on how and when these may reopen but we don’t have a timescale for this yet, especially as many of our offices/outreaches are in other people’s premises.”
The easiest ways for people to get in touch with the service at the moment is either by phone or email.
Call 03444 111 444 (lines are open: Monday to Friday 9am-5pm)
Email via the local website: https://www.citizensadvicewiltshire.org.uk/contact-us
