The Citizens Advice service helps people resolve their legal, money and other problems by providing free, independent and confidential advice, and by influencing policymakers.

Every Citizens Advice Bureau is a registered charity reliant on trained volunteers and funds to provide these vital services for local communities.

• Our impact report

• Our service strategy 2008-2011

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Annual Report 2004 - Funding the charity for your community

Citizens Advice – and every Citizens Advice Bureau – is an independent registered charity, reliant on the support of a wide range of funders.

• Citizens Advice income
• Ciitizens Advice expenditure
• Bureau income

Citizens Advice income

Citizens Advice income has increased by nearly £8 million this year, largely from government grants. These include the second half of a £20 million grant from the Capital Modernisation Fund for our Citizens Connect IT programme and £2.6 million from the Department of Health for setting up ICAS (Independent Complaints Advocacy Service for NHS complaints) in six NHS regions.

We are grateful to the Department of Trade and Industry for their continued and increased support, which accounts for £22 million (65 per cent) of Citizens Advice income through grant in aid.

Citizens Advice expenditure

Citizens Advice spent over £9 million more supporting bureaux in 2003/04 than in the previous year. Citizens Advice supports its member bureaux to deliver quality advice and campaigns for changes in policies and services. We spent:

• nearly £12 million on supporting and rolling out IT infrastructure to bureaux to implement our CASE recording system and open up e-government services to CAB clients
• £4.9 million on direct grants to bureaux, an increase of 101 per cent. This is mainly due to the ICAS project
• £3.3 million on training bureau staff and volunteers
• 1.6 million ensuring the information provided to our advisers is comprehensive and up-to-date
• £1.4 million on campaigning for change.

Citizens Advice income and expenditure figures have been extracted from the audited accounts which were approved by the Citizens Advice Trustee Board on 28 July 2004 and have been submitted to the Charity Commission and delivered to the Registrar of Companies. The auditors opinion on the accounts was unqualified. A full copy of the Citizens Advice financial statements is available from the registered office. (Citizens Advice is an operating name of The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux.)

Bureau income

Total bureau income has increased by £11.6 million to nearly £127.9 million.

This includes a new contract of over £2.3 million to fund bureaux to provide the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service for NHS complaints in six health regions, and increased income from the Community Fund, Sure Start, Learning and Skills Council, Welsh Assembly funded projects and new money to provide partnership advice projects with courts, prisons and probation services.

Bureaux continue to receive a substantial amount of their overall income (£60,891,000) from local authorities. Though actual funding has increased by 3.9 per cent, the proportion of bureau income from local authorities has gone down from 50.5 per cent to 47.6 per cent. The second largest source of funding is from the Legal Services Commission (LSC) for contracts to provide legal help and LSC partnership projects.

Funding figures have been reported by Citizens Advice Bureaux

** Other includes grants from Citizens Advice and The Friends of Citizens Advice Bureaux Trust (Friends).

During 2003/04, Citizens Advice raised over £215,000 for Friends and distributed grants to 113 bureaux throughout the UK (see page 17)

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