breaking down the barriers to advice

“People often tell us they can never get through on our phone line or the queues in the waiting room are too long. It is true that far more people want to use our service than we have the resources to help,” said CAB Chief Executive Simon Harris.

“Nonetheless, we are committed to making our services as accessible as possible and breaking down the barriers many people face in getting essential advice”.

“To a certain extent we are the victims of our own success” he continued. “But continuing levels of poverty and unemployment in the city allied to rising levels of debt, and increasing complexity of modern life means that the demand for advice is constantly growing.”

Cutting waiting times and improving the phone service have been major priorities for the bureau in the last year.

Using resources provided by the Legal Service Commission’s CLS Direct phone service we have significantly increased the availability of telephone advice.

“This has meant we have answered far more calls from people needing advice about debts, benefits and problems at work than ever before,” Simon Harris said.

“Many people can not travel to the CAB because of ill health, caring responsibilities or simply they cannot afford to travel into the city centre. Telephone advice can often provide the only means of getting vital advice.

“This development shows how we have been able to take national funding and use it to benefit local people.”

Changing the system for dealing with drop in callers at the city centre bureau has slashed waiting times by more than half and enabled more people to get the advice they need.

“Our original aim was to provide a better and more efficient service to the people we were seeing. The improvements we have made have undoubtedly done this but also opened up the service to even more people who had previously been excluded,” said Simon Harris.

“This has been an extremely successful initiative but it has simply emphasised to us the need to effectively and efficiently manage the demand for our service to make sure that those who need the service most can get access to it.

“Although we have made significant improvements, there is clearly more that can be done. A major priority for the forthcoming year is to look at improving access by taking advice out to some of the city’s poorest and more remote communities”.