Outcomes of advice

The outcomes of CAB advice
During 2010/11, we helped 2.1 million people with 7.1 million problems but these statistics don’t show the whole picture. It tells us how many people we help but not what the result of our advice is.
So in February 2012, we took a snapshot of outcomes recorded for debt, benefits, housing and employment enquiries. The sample is made up of 199,000 outcomes captured for 135,000 clients – six per cent of all clients seen by the service in 2010/11 and 12 per cent of clients who received full advice.
From this sample:
- £299 million worth of additional income meant that 64,400 clients gained an average of £5,000 each.
- The above additional income includes £256 million worth of benefits successfully claimed.
- £238 million worth of debt has been written off for 18,500 clients – an average of £17,170 each.
- 37,100 clients had one or more debt repayments successfully rescheduled.
- Homelessness was prevented or averted for 5,000 clients
For more information:
Demonstrating the value of the Citizens Advice service
These documents demonstrate the outcomes of our advice work. They provide introductions to how our work helps clients, the government and society.
The first paper is a summary of the outcomes recorded against problems opened in 2010/11 Outcomes have been captured for more than 135,000 clients, this is the largest dataset of advice outcomes available in the UK, and its size allows us to draw confident conclusions about typical outcomes for our clients.
The following set of reports are short papers, each focussing upon a different issue faced by our clients. They discuss the key problems caused by the issue, the impacts of these problems, and the benefits that advice provision can supply.
We have focused initially on the greatest areas of our work; benefits and tax credit, debt, housing, and employment.
These documents are not static and will be updated as we continue to gather information around the outcomes of our work.
For more information on our outcomes work please see Understanding Citizens Advice approach to outcomes (
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Client satisfaction
Overall client satisfaction with the Citizens Advice service has risen to 97 per cent in 2011/12.
The satisfaction of clients who have accessed our services remains high and has increased year-on-year. This reflects Citizens Advice continued commitment to provide a client-centred service, and we are always striving to do better.
108,000 clients were surveyed in 2011/12 regarding their satisfaction about a range of aspects of our service. This document provides a summary of our results
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