The Citizens Advice Bureau in Bournemouth faces a £30,000 cut from council funding at a time when it needs the money the most.
The issue of Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) funding was raised by Cllr Pat Lewis at the council meeting on 20th January 2009, under the title ‘resources for the CAB’. Cllr Pat Lewis said: “Increasing numbers of our residents are seeking advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau: would the cabinet member agree to fast track the funding needed so that CAB can direct more resources to their debt counselling service?”
Cllr Beesley responded by saying: “As we are working through the budget process the final figures will be available sometime later next month we have a service level agreement in place assuring security of funding over a three year period.”
He added: “The council supports the work of the CAB especially in relation to debt advice.”
Martin Broad, Chief Executive of the CAB, stated that due to the financial crisis there had been a rise of “10-15% increase of actual bums on seats if you like, people needing our support, needing our assistance.”
However, the beginning of the financial year 2008 saw the drop in council funding. Mr Broad said: “The financial reduction was made for the financial year 2007/2008, the bureaux funding was £152,000, for the financial year starting the year April 2008 through to March 2009 it was reduced by £20,000.”
He added: “On paper at the moment until it is reviewed upwards, if that’s what happens, the amount of money that service level agreement demonstrates is a further reduction of £10,000.” Which would mean “if it stayed as it is that would mean that over two years we would have had a reduction of £30,000, which to many doesn’t make any sense when there is an increase in demand.”
Cllr Beesley outlined the possibility of government funding, saying: “I would hope that would be available very shortly. We are certainly working towards that target.” However Mr Broad said: “That is not quite as straight forward as may have appeared.”
He explained that the Department for Communities and Local Government “released in its pre-budget report 10 million pounds to Citizens Advice.” This meant that all the 450 bureaux, within England and Wales, made applications to the main body of the charity for an amount of the funding.
He added: “So we, like any other bureau, are in competition with each other throughout the country to get some of that money, there were ceilings on the amount of money that we could ask for and we await that decision.”
Cllr Pat Lewis expressed during the council meeting that there are queues outside the CAB and Mr Broad told of other areas where cut backs had had to be made, saying: “We had to make redundancies, so there were paid staff redundancies and other stringencies.”
Although Cllr Beesley seemed to use the three year service agreement to imply that no changes can be made, Mr Broad makes it clear that there can, by saying: “Within that there is always the flexibility of the local authority to review the funding.”
Changes have already been presented to the council, as Mr Broad said how in the Autumn the local authorities administration, “brought to the chamber of the council a motion, which said that in light of the present crisis they intend to review the situation in support of the Citizens Advice Bureau. This was a very popular motion and received cross party support unanimously.”
Cllr Pat Lewis was, as Mr Broad expresses, trying to make this possible in terms of financial support. Mr Broad, commenting on Cllr Pat Lewis’s actions, said: “She’s making a very strong voice on behalf of her ward residents that the demand is immediate and therefore there ought to be, if possible, an immediate review of the service level agreement and not something for the next financial year.”
According to Cllr Beesley, Mr Broad, and those who rely on the CAB will have to wait until April to find out if funding will be cut further, for a charity that is a haven to many.
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