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North Oxfordshire MP Tony Baldry calls for sustainable funding for Citizens Advice Bureaux

In a debate in Westminster Hall on 2nd December 2009 Tony Baldry called on the government to provide sustainable funding for Citizens Advice Bureaux.

Tony Baldry MP said:

"My request to the Minister is this. I appreciate that for any Department finding new money is always difficult, but it should be possible for Ministers at least to undertake to work with Citizens Advice at national level to set up a working group or working party to see how all the various pockets of money that different Departments are giving Citizens Advice can be better co-ordinated and made more sustainable."

The complete text of Tony Baldry’s speech together with the Minister’s response, is below:
9.50 am

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): I join the congratulations to the hon. Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Charlotte Atkins) on securing the debate and introducing it with characteristic clarity. I do not think that I will be out of order if I say that the last time she initiated a debate in this Chamber-which I spoke in, just a few weeks ago-it was on thalidomide. The debate took place on a Wednesday, and by the Sunday the Government had run up the white flag. I hope that we have equal success in this debate.

The core issue is ensuring sustainable funding for citizens advice bureaux. All of us could give examples of the excellent work done by the bureaux in our constituencies. I have two in mine: one in Banbury and one in Bicester. Both do excellent work. As the hon. Lady said, individually they are charities and, as such, they do their best to raise money locally. However, I think that if one did a survey on Sheep street in Bicester or the high street in Banbury, most people would say that they thought that the citizens advice bureau was an extension of the public service. Bureaux therefore find it hard to raise money. A CAB is not a sexy cause in comparison with the local hospice, the young homelessness project or the Banbury branch of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. It is a difficult ask for bureaux.

The next area of funding has generally been local government. We all have to be grown-up about this. All of us know that, irrespective of who wins the next general election, local government's projected figures for the next few years are very squeezed. Oxfordshire county council has been having to explain to people in our county that it will have to make significant savings on its budget. The position is exactly the same for Cherwell district council.

Local government, of course, is hit by the recession just as much as anyone else. A district council still has to run a planning department, but it does not have the same volume of fees coming in from planning applications, and more people have to be employed to deal with housing benefit. That means that if the council is looking round, what tend to be squeezed are discretionary areas of spending, including grants to organisations such as citizens advice bureaux.

We must take a more adult approach to how the bureaux are funded. There is no dispute; everyone sees them as being of real value. The briefing sent to hon. Members by Citizens Advice before the debate makes the position clear. It states:

"Not surprisingly, the recession has substantially increased the number of people coming to Citizens Advice for help. Bureaux in England and Wales have seen large and rising increases in debt, employment and benefits related enquiries over the last year.

In particular, we are seeing an enormous rise in the number of people turning to us for help because they have lost their job, or are struggling with debts or having problems keeping up with their mortgages.

The most common reasons for debt were low income, over-commitment, illness or disability and job loss. But irresponsible lending, poor financial skills and increases in the cost of living had also played a significant part in people's debt problems."

Significantly, figures from Citizens Advice show that bureaux in England and Wales deal with 9,300 new debt problems and 8,000 new benefit problems every working day.

That is reflected in my own constituency. The Banbury CAB tells me that for the first half of this year, it received 7,300 inquiries compared with 11,000 for the whole of the previous year, and the number of individual clients whom it sees is up by 20 per cent. on the same period last year. That is largely because of the recession. There has been a substantial increase in inquiries relating to allowances for jobseekers and redundancies.

Bureaux are constantly having to scrabble around, getting grants from the Legal Services Commission or, as the hon. Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands said, hoping that they can persuade the Big Lottery Fund or someone else that they are doing something unique or innovative, so that they receive grant funding for what is unique or innovative. However, they have considerable difficulties with core funding.

It is time that the Government considered seriously how they manage to ensure decent core funding for citizens advice bureaux up and down the country. I should have thought that it was self-evident to the Government that the £10 million that they gave the bureaux earlier this year to facilitate increased opening hours has been put to extremely good use. An extra session late on a Monday in Banbury has enabled the CAB there to see 370 new clients just since March. Those people might otherwise have found it difficult to get into the bureau during the hours when it was open.

We cannot allow the future of bureaux to be permanently uncertain. That is very debilitating for volunteers, who spend considerable time training so that they can give
very good advice. They also spend considerable time giving advice, and then they have to spend considerable time worrying about services and fundraising to keep them going.

David Taylor: May I reiterate that the AHA funding finishes at 5 pm 17 weeks today, on 31 March 2010? The amounts are small, but the continued tracking up of unemployment means that the cases that citizens advice bureaux deal with that relate to debt, benefits and employment will continue to track up. That must be matched by a continuation of the funding, at least for 12 further months.

Tony Baldry: I agree. Those problems will not disappear in March. Indeed, people will have continuing problems with unemployment and other consequences of the recession for many months to come. My request to the Minister is this. I appreciate that for any Department finding new money is always difficult, but it should be possible for Ministers at least to undertake to work with Citizens Advice at national level to set up a working group or working party to see how all the various pockets of money that different Departments are giving Citizens Advice can be better co-ordinated and made more sustainable.

Such a group could also ascertain how we could ensure that the CAB movement and the core activities of individual bureaux were sustained against a background of local authority funding becoming increasingly difficult. That is because for local authorities it is a discretionary spend, and at a time when their budgets are under pressure, they will inevitably have to give up or reduce discretionary spending. However much they would like to maintain it, they will have to reduce it ahead of mandatory spending.

Irrespective of the Government who are elected in March, April or May of next year, I hope that those of us who aspire to be here after the next general election will not find ourselves having to attend a debate like this next June or July in a situation in which bureaux up and down the country face wholesale difficulties. The bureaux have demonstrated the value that they give the community. They demonstrate that they give good value for money. It is time that the work of the volunteers involved was supported by consistent funding from central Government.

The Minister for Further Education, Skills, Apprenticeships and Consumer Affairs (Kevin Brennan): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Charlotte Atkins) on securing this important debate, and everybody else who has contributed. This has been a wide-ranging and interesting debate. I join others in congratulating the citizens advice bureaux on their 70th birthday and on all the fantastic work they have done during that period.

Given the time available, I will refer briefly to what hon. Members have said and then make some more general remarks. My hon. Friend pointed out the valuable work done in her constituency by her local bureaux and the pressure that they are under. However, I was concerned at what she said about the contracts with the Department for Work and Pensions and the flexible new deal, and the lack of third-sector involvement. I will be happy to talk to DWP colleagues about that, because the Government vision to which my hon. Friend referred is very much that the third sector should be involved in delivering such services.

My hon. Friend referred to additional help from the Government for the third sector. Help for Citizens Advice is being given not only as a result of the recession. For example, since 2001 the income generated for the third sector by the Government has risen to £12 billion-a £3.6 billion increase in recent years.

The Government's commitment to the third sector is not merely rhetorical, but a genuine financial commitment on the level of support for the third sector, as it will help the Government to deliver their priorities. It will also help the third sector to do what it does best-reach down into those parts of our communities that the Government cannot reach. Indeed, in my former role as Minister for the third sector, I introduced a recession action plan, which in August this year brought in an extra £15 million that went to 558 organisations, and a £16.5 million modernisation fund. Help has been given over and above the help for citizens advice bureaux, to which my hon. Friend referred.

If I may, I shall return later to the question of additional hours raised by my hon. Friend. However, she said that her local CAB was not included in the additional hours project. That decision, of course, was taken by Citizens Advice, rather than the Department. We wanted Citizens Advice to decide where the additional hours should be allocated, but I take the point that the requirements could not be met for her local CAB.

The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) called on the Government to provide core funding for local bureaux. The Government provide core funding not for local bureaux, but for the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. However, I welcome the hon. Gentleman's support for Citizens Advice. Twenty-five years ago, at the heart of another recession, Citizens Advice was attacked by the Government for being critical of their response to the recession. It was accused of being a hotbed of radicals and revolutionaries. In reality, that is not a description of what Citizens Advice is about, so it was refreshing to hear that the hon. Gentleman recognises and supports the importance of Citizens Advice in helping people through the recession.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Government's additional funding, which is helping 370 extra clients in Banbury. However, it is for local government to organise the local delivery of services through citizens advice bureaux. Each bureau is an independent charity, as he will know, and they are supported by the network, which is supported by funding.

Tony Baldry rose-

Kevin Brennan: Given the time constraints, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me I shall try to answer as many Members as I can. If he wishes, he can contact me later about any other points.

It would be a big thing for the Government to be involved in the funding of individual local citizens advice bureaux. On reflection, I am not sure that that is
the right way forward. Yes, local authorities are under pressure, but the provision of good advice services is a priority for local authorities, and they should not retreat to a position of protecting only what they directly deliver. They should consider the value that the third sector can bring to local authority priorities, and in these times advice should be a top priority.

The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) was one of three Back-Bench Members from Wales who contributed to the debate. He made an interesting point about the changes that have been made and the so-called CLAC provisions for community legal advice centres in Wales. We were here last year, as I attended a debate instigated by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) on that very issue. However, in an interesting contribution, the hon. Gentleman pointed out the other way forward.

The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy criticised the Government for bailing out the banks rather than supporting Citizens Advice. Had the Government not saved the banking system, bureaux would have faced much longer queues of people who had lost their life savings. That is not quite the comparison that he wanted to make.

The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) pointed out the good role played by citizens advice bureaux in Northern Ireland, and the different funding streams available there. He also referred to the ongoing need for support.

The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Davies) spoke of the history of his constituency in the 1930s, when CAB started. Male unemployment in Brynmawr in his constituency in those days was more than 68 per cent. As he knows, my mother was growing up in Nantyglo in his constituency at the time. The Government's philosophy in trying to support Citizens Advice in dealing with the recession is rather different from the means test that his constituents and my family faced then. However, he made a good point about shared premises. That would be a good way to cut costs, and local authorities could support bureaux in kind.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) pointed out the importance of the additional hours project. I shall refer to the project later, but it has helped more than 400 clients in his constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said that Citizens Advice can offer alternatives to poor-quality legal advice such as in this old joke: "If I give you £100, will you answer two questions?" to which the answer is, "Yes. What is your second question?" The number of cases of bad legal advice referred to Citizens Advice that come to MPs' constituency offices is a matter of great concern. My hon. Friend made a valid point about bureaux helping people in a real and tangible way to deal with eviction and other problems in her constituency, and spoke of the need for continued funding. She also said that diverse communities need particular help. As part of the face-to-face debt advice project, we have budgeted for such things as translation facilities for all projects, which is important in communities such as those in Hackney in my hon. Friend's constituency. We have also provided British sign language facilities for other excluded groups such as the deaf and so on.

The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) said that she did not want to be a harbinger of doom but went on to be one in her description of the economic outlook. Nevertheless, she passionately pointed out the importance of the services that bureaux provide. She also pointed out how they should be treated in procurement situations. However, advice is available from the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux in such situations, and it is supported by the Government. I agree that it is important that the third sector is taken into account in Government procurement. That is why we created the Office of the Third Sector, which can provide support.

The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) invited me to make up policy on the hoof. I must disappoint him, but I shall look into what he said about employment tribunal awards. I shall seek advice, although not from NACAB, on his question about the impact of CLAC and CLAN plans. He was not able to name the source of the information that he gave, but he told us how those plans might affect CAB funding for one county. I am happy to investigate that further with officials.

One point was central to the debate: Members wanted to know about funding, and particularly about the additional funding that the Government are providing at a time of recession. This year, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills allocated £21.47 million of grant in aid to enable NACAB to provide the essential leadership and support to local bureaux. It will seek to monitor and maintain standards, train staff and volunteers, and help to strengthen the bureaux network. It will also provide case data and evidence from bureaux, allowing the Government to inform and communicate policy developments. Central funding is provided through the Department for that reason.

Feedback has been important in building and maintaining a modern regime, ensuring that consumers are treated fairly, empowering people and ensuring that they know their rights, and helping bureaux to cope with the significant increase in demand for local services through measures such as the additional hours project, which give additional support.

The further £10 million of funding, which lasts until 2010, is enabling bureaux to extend their opening hours for generalist advice. That funding was announced in last year's pre-Budget report. It has been a success, but it was meant to be a temporary measure. I cannot anticipate the forthcoming pre-Budget report. However, the scheme has been highly successful: 324 participating bureaux have been able to advise a huge number of clients in a large number of locations. That is well on the way to beating the Government's original target of helping 335,000 more local people. Although I cannot say any more today, this being a matter for the Chancellor, I acknowledge the success of the scheme in a time of recession.