£9.5 million of new funding for Citizens Advice Service to champion consumer work
Consumer Minister Jo Swinson announces £9.5million of additional funding for the Citizens Advice Service
The Citizens Advice Service received a boost in its role as the voice of the consumer as Consumer Minister Jo Swinson announced £9.5million of additional funding.
During a visit to Renfrewshire Citizens Advice Bureau in Paisley, Scotland, the Minister will be announcing a funding package of £9.5million to Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland. The funding will support the work of the Service which will become a ‘one-stop shop’ for information, education and advice about general consumer matters.
Consumer Minister Jo Swinson said:
We are committed to supporting the Citizens Advice Service whose work is crucial to providing consumers with fair and impartial advice. I will be seeing this work in action in Paisley today. Offices here and around the country have worked hard to help consumers despite tough times, and that is why I am thrilled we are providing more funding.
Citizens Advice has built up trust in communities to become a respected household name; consumers know that when they have a question or a problem they can approach their local Citizens Advice with ease. That is why the Citizens Advice Service is setting the standard as the consumer body and will take on new functions from 1 April. I am confident that these changes will boost consumer confidence and protection enormously.
The extra funding will help Citizens Advice as it takes on more responsibility as part of the changes announced by government to reshape the consumer landscape. From 1 April 2013 the Citizens Advice Service will work on consumer advocacy and education, as Consumer Focus and the OFT prepare to handover their work. This means that when consumers need someone to take forward their complaint, provide advice and information or know what their consumer rights are, they now have one place to go. This initiative is part of wider government reforms which will give greater clarity to consumers about where they need to turn for help and advice, through clearer responsibilities and better co-ordination between consumer bodies and enforcers.
Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice said,
More than 14 million people currently use our website, we see over 2 million people in our bureaux and speak to a further 2 million by phone. This additional capital funding from BIS will enable us to help even more people by improving our digital infrastructure and continuing to enhance the information that we are able to provide to all our clients. It will also help us gather more evidence to identify and act on the most pressing problems facing the nation.
Margaret Lynch, CEO of CAS who will be at the Paisley event, said,
The CAB service in Scotland is in the front-line of helping people deal with the problems they face as a result of the recession and the changes to the benefits system. Here in Paisley, as across Scotland, CAB staff and volunteers are stretched more than they have ever been, and the level of demand is set to continue to rise. Our advisers need the best possible support if they are to continue the vital work that they do - not just in giving free, confidential and impartial advice to those who need it, but also in taking on these enhanced responsibilities for consumer protection.
The funding that is being announced today will help and every penny of it is sorely needed and will be put to good use. But it must not be a one-off. Our service needs sustained investment which recognises the crucial role we play in our communities. People need to know that the CAB service will continue to offer them the best possible support – just as we always have.
In conjunction with the Minister’s visit to Paisley, BIS has supported this month’s launch of Scotland’s Stop Loan Sharks campaign, with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA). COSLA’s campaign aims to make consumers more aware of the dangers of loan sharks, urging the general public to report suspected unlicensed lenders and seek help from organisations such as Citizens Advice if they have money worries.
Notes to editors
1.Of the £9.5million funding, £1.5million will go to Citizens Advice Scotland and the £8million remainder to Citizens Advice England and Wales.
2.The government’s economic policy objective is to achieve ‘strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries’. It set four ambitions in the ‘Plan for Growth’ (PDF 1.7MB), published at Budget 2011:
- to create the most competitive tax system in the G20
- to make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business
- to encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy
- to create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe.
Work is underway across government to achieve these ambitions, including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth Review. Developing an Industrial Strategy gives new impetus to this work by providing businesses, investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in which the government wants the economy to travel.