The Citizens Advice Bureau Logo.

A Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) is one of a network of independent charities throughout the UK that give free, confidential information and advice to help people sort out their money, legal, consumer and other problems. The aims of the CAB service is to ensure that individuals do not suffer through lack of knowledge of their rights and responsibilities, the services which are available to them, or through an inability to express their needs effectively. Trained advisers can help write letters, make phone calls, negotiate with creditors and take cases to tribunals and court. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

The CAB is not a department of central or local government, but a local charitable organisation staffed mainly by volunteers. It is totally non-selective in its clients and impartial in dealing with all sorts of persons and problems and is totally free. Its primary aim is helping people by investigating their problems, exploring and explaining their options, and where appropriate helping to contact and deal with the relevant officials and organisations.

History

The first 200 bureaux opened on 4th September 1939, the day after World War II started. By 1942 there were 1074 bureaux, but in the 1950s the funding was cut and in the 1960s there were only 416 bureaux. In 1973 the government funded NACAB, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, to enlarge the network. In 2003 this changed its name to Citizens Advice (in England and Northern Ireland) and Cyngor ar Bopeth or "Advice on everything" (in Wales). September 4 is the 247th day of the year (248th in leap years). ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

In 2006 there were 462 bureaux offering advice from over 3000 locations.

The 12 Principles of the CAB service

The CAB service in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland is guided by 12 principles. All CABx and workers for the CABx must adhere to these principles, and bureaux must demonstrate that they adhere to these principles in order to retain membership of the national umbrella bodies.

A free service
Confidentiality
Impartiality
Independence
Accessibility
Effectiveness
Community accountability
The client’s right to decide
A voluntary service
Empowerment
Information retrieval
A generalist service

Work

A lot of the CAB's work involves issues such as debt management and welfare benefits, housing, immigration and asylum, employment issues, consumer complaints and landlord/tenant disputes. Advice is available in the bureaux, but also in community venues, in people's homes, by phone, by email and at www.adviceguide.org.uk. For other uses, see Debt (disambiguation). ... Power lines leading to a trash dump hover just overhead in El Carpio, a Nicaraguan refugee camp in Costa Rica Under international law, a refugee is a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her...

The Citizens Advice service, both locally and nationally, also uses CAB clients' problems as evidence to influence policy makers to review laws or administrative practices which cause undue difficulties to clients.

This is the outworking of the charities twin aims of the Citizens Advice service are:

To ensure that individuals do not suffer through lack of knowledge of their rights and responsibilities or of the services available to them, or through an inability to express their needs effectively.

To exercise a responsible influence on the development of social policies and services both locally and nationally.

Organisation and funding

The Citizens Advice service is one of the largest volunteer organisations in the UK with over 20,000 volunteers. The majority of these are part time volunteer advisers with varying levels of training, but the figure also includes trustees and administrators. Typically there will be a paid bureau manager, advice session supervisors and in some cases some paid advisers. With the ever-increasing complexity of queries many CABx are having to resort to employing more staff to cope with constantly changing legislation. This group of political volunteers is working to promote voter turn-out. ...

Each local CAB or group is a separate independent charity with independent trustees. Many bureaux are also limited companies and may have a board of directors, who will also be the organisation's trustees. Bureaux throughout the UK have varying community needs and very different resources, and consequently offer different styles and levels of service.

They often receive significant funding by local authorities, sometimes under service level agreements and local solicitors may agree to provide limited legal advice pro bono. Some staff may be qualified to give specialist legal advice or to advise on immigration. The umbrella bodies of the service in the UK (Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland) provide access to training courses for all volunteers and employees. Service Level Agreement (SLA) is that part of a service contract in which a certain level of service is agreed upon. ...

All CABs try to ensure their services are accessible to all sections of the community, so that provision can be made for the housebound, immigrant communities, rural inhabitants, elderly and disabled as appropriate.

All Citizens Advice Bureaux in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are members of Citizens Advice (CitA), an operating name of The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. CABx in Scotland are members of Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS), part of the Scottish Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. Both CitA and CAS are registered charities and are financed partly by the Department of Trade and Industry (although both organisations are completely independent of central government); member bureaux also pay heavily-subsidised subscriptions for the services offered. CitA and CAS provide bureaux with information, training and consultancy services, and regularly audit individual bureaux against the requirements of their respective membership standards. A charitable organization (also known as a charity) is a trust, company or unincorporated association established for charitable purposes only. ... The Department of Trade and Industry is a United Kingdom government department. ...

New initiatives

Despite the large number of volunteers working for the organisation, level of demand for the service often far outstrips resources. The National Association has recently begun looking at ways to reach all members of the community through new mediums such as email advice and DigiTV.

Another initiative has been allowing university students to train as advisers to gain credits toward their degree. This was pioneered by a partnership between the University of Portsmouth and Portsmouth Citizens Advice Bureau and is due to roll out to the University of Reading and the University of Northampton by July 2007

External links

• Citizens Advice (England and Wales)
• Citizens Advice Scotland
• Citizens Advice Northern Ireland
• Citizens Advice International Information on Citizens Advice organisations around the world
• History of Citizens Advice
• Adviceguide Online advice on your rights from Citizens Advice