Everything was falling apart - Citizens Advice helped me get back on track. Annual Report 2015-2016 Our service aims We help people find a way forward - everything we do shares this aim. If you came to us with a problem, we’d help you get back on track, while recognising where others might also be facing similar experiences Advice and Research and education campaigns How we work We’d work with you to Where systemic When you come to us find a way forward, barrier with private or with a problem, you’re taking into account all public policy and likely to be helped by the ways your practice stops us one of our trained problem might be resolving your volunteers, using both affecting your life, and problem, we’d look at our local knowledge, finding the best next other clients’ supported by our steps for you. experience. national network. We’d also consider if We also create benefit we could develop your We use our national skills to prevent a data to understand the to society through the similar scenario impact of policy and way we deliver our arising again. regulation, and services. campaign locally and This is in addition to the We provide integrated nationally for changes advice to solve to solve collective impact our principal individuals’ problems problems. So one way activities have on either directly through or another, we’re clients’ lives, and covers: our local Citizens Advice helping everyone - not the benefit of network and consumer just those we support working with service, or via our self- directly. volunteers help website. our support for local communities the power of the national network. It’s also what makes our service unique. Page 1 Contents 1. Chair’s report page 3 2. Chief Executive Officer’s report page 4 3. Key Statistics pages 5 - 6 4. Our core service pages 7 - 9 5. Projects pages 10 - 15 6. Outcomes and the difference we pages 16 - 18 make to peoples’ lives 7. Research and campaigning page 19 8. Our volunteers page 20 9. Recruitment and training page 20 Volunteers and staff list page 21 - 22 10. Working in partnership page 23 11. Funders and supporters page 24 12. Contact details page 25 Thank you to everyone who contributed and to Rosalie Boyles who volunteered her time to design and produce this year’s report. Page 2 1. Chair’s report - Councillor Carl Les Every year I never cease to be amazed at what we do and what we deliver with our willing band of volunteers, and our small team of excellent staff, ably led by Carol. Our communities are well served by our efforts. My thanks to you all. I must also recognise and thank all our funders, big and small, without whose resources the doors would not be opened at all each day. Recently we merged Ham & Rich into one bureau with two main sites, and numerous outreach locations, and made it work, and work well. So it was with a degree of confidence that we embarked on a similar pathway with Selby and District. With our experience, and a shared desire from both Hambleton, Richmondshire, and Selby & District to succeed, again we have made it work. I welcome Selby trustees who have come on board to strengthen our board, especially Bob as Vice Chair, and Mark as Treasurer and I think we are already proving to be effective. At this point I must thank Jonathan Thompson for his efforts as our former treasurer and wish him well in his retirement. I believe our offices are delivering quality advice services which is our raison d'ȇtre. Client satisfaction is high. Our recent audit assessed us as excellent. Well done to all!! Together we are stronger and we can face the ever changing world with confidence, and often with a better prospect than some of our neighbours. As I said earlier, our communities are well served by our efforts. 12 5,995 locations where 88 clients seen with we provide free and volunteers with impartial advice an economic 19,102 and information value of issues across Hambleton £229,454 and Richmondshire Page 3 2. Chief Executive Officer’s report - Carol Shreeve Although in theory this should be the last annual report of Hambleton and Richmondshire Citizens Advice Bureau it already feels strange to be looking at ourselves in that way. To see this as the ending of something when it already feels like we are well on our way to a new adventure. In fact, one of the main highlights for me of the last financial year was the merger process with Selby. I have been involved in several mergers and I have never before had one that it anyway could have been said to be fun but this one actual was. The attitude and the willingness of all involved, particularly Melanie Davis and Bob, made the process an interesting and entertaining one. I see the recent successful result our new organisation has achieved at audit as celebration of how well each organisation and site has coped with the merger and the positive contribution and attitude of the staff and volunteers. Although this was the perhaps most noteworthy event of the year I would like to look at some of the work we did in our communities last year. Money Advice Service Debt Project (MASDAP) was awarded a very high rating on its external quality of advice audit. We developed our channels of communication with our community by extending our phone contacts and introducing webchat to sit alongside our email service. We began our new Big Lottery Reaching Communities project – Rural Reach – and have done a fantastic job of extending our outreach services. We have increased our training opportunities for volunteers and are developing new ways of enabling volunteers and staff to develop in their roles We joined the Warm and Well in North Yorkshire partnership run by Rural Action Yorkshire and have enjoyed working with our new contacts and are learning from all involved. We have gone forward in reaching people and services with our use of social media and publicity. We have enjoyed working as part of Citizens Advice to highlight campaigning issues, particularly around Universal Credit and digital access. One of the main challenges we are looking at for our current service is making sure we have the resources and the support going forward to deal with challenging times. Although we are very aware that problems for our community lie ahead we are determined to do our best to be there to support our communities and to join with other agencies to provide the best services we can. Page 4 3. Key statistics 2015 - 2016 Clients and issues Financial Outcomes Clients 5,995 Income Gain £877,187 Advice Issue Codes 19,102 Debts Written Off £1,073,769 Client Contacts 11,691 Repayments Scheduled £30,457 Enquiries 6,016 Top 5 advice categories Debt 19% 34% Benefits & tax credits 5% Financial services & capability 7% Employment 11% Housing 24% all other Contacts by Channel Face to Face Adviceline Phone 35% 20% 19% 23% 3% Telephone Letter/Mail Email/Web 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Page 5 Gender of Clients Disability Female Disabled or LTH Male 35% condition 45% 55% Not disabled/no health problems 65% Ethnicity of clients 1% 1% 1% 0% Asian or Asian British Black or Black British Mixed Other White 97% Age range of clients 600 531 539 484 495 500 500 454 431 409 401 400 325 300 217 200 130 73 100 55 34 0 1 0 1 0 Page 6 4. Our core service Advice Services Manager Simon Farquhar It was commented recently that I always mention how long I've worked for Citizens Advice in my annual report contribution...it's true I do! But I think it's important to highlight that there are staff and volunteers who have committed themselves to the service for a considerable length of time. I've been lucky enough to work here for 16 years but we have volunteers who, despite not having the incentive of being paid, have been here over 20 years. It never ceases to amaze me the level of commitment our volunteers are prepared to give year in and year out and I commend them for their determination to keep helping others. We have since the inception of the service provided advice to residents of our districts face to face. This suits many of our clients but makes it difficult for some to access our service. Many years ago we extended this to telephone advice (Adviceline), a service we have expanded significantly in recent years by working in partnerships with neighbouring offices in North Yorkshire. This allows those who can't get in to the office much easier access to our services. Some years ago we also introduced an email advice service on a local basis which again expands access to those who need more than the public website but who have problems accessing the office. Our public site at www.citizensadvice.org.uk continues to expand and become more detailed and customer friendly...this allows many who can't access the service during working hours get significant amounts of information on the issues they face. In 2015/2016 we were working up to implementing our email and webchat service as part of a national Citizens Advice pilot project. We have, as I already stated, offered advice via email for years but the opportunity to join this project to include webchat was an opportunity to develop our service that was too good to miss.