HomePublicationsAnnual reportsCitizens Advice annual report 2003/2004Support the charity for your community

It is due to the support we receive from companies, trusts and many others that we are able to develop projects that help people in the community, and make a difference to the lives of individuals and families.

Citizens Advice always welcomes new partners that can help us to build on our work as the charity for your community.

• Prudential plc is funding a three-year national financial literacy programme to deliver face-to-face personal finance education through nine bureaux. It helps adults to develop skills and confidence to manage their finances effectively and deals with budgeting, credit and financial planning. The project works with a range of client groups including young vulnerable people in housing foyers, asylum seekers, prisoners, mental health service users and rural communities. It aims to generate replicable ‘best practice’ models for the delivery of adult financial literacy and hopes to influence a range of partners and policy makers.

• HP is helping Citizens Advice to deliver IT training through Friends. Last year, 67 bureaux benefited from grants worth £112,239. Since the scheme began, over 1,200 individuals have improved their IT skills and several courses have been run for bureau workers with disabilities.
• Support from the Royal Bank of Scotland Group’s Financial Inclusion Innovation Fund, funded a collaborative research project with the RNIB. Money Matters aims to identify and compare the issues people with visual impairment face in making appropriate financial choices with non-visually impaired people. The project will evaluate to what extent visually impaired people may experience poverty and disadvantage compounded through lack of financial literacy.
• The delivery of national policy and parliamentary work is a key role of the CAB service. We aim to inform policy makers and service providers about the experiences of CAB clients and influence government where change and improvement are needed. Support from Experian enabled us to participate fully at the party conferences.
• In 2003/04 bureaux received over one million new debt enquiries and almost five million other enquiries on issues like welfare benefits and tax credits. A radical new pilot project to provide generic financial advice to consumers has received £90,000 jointly from Barclays Bank, the Society of Financial Advisors (SOFA) and the Tudor Trust.  The project – which sees nine Citizens Advice Bureaux working in collaboration with independent financial advisers (IFAs) – is aimed at providing Citizens Advice Bureaux clients with access to free, independent and impartial financial advice. In the pilot project, three different interventions will be tested and all IFAs involved provide their services pro bono.

The Friends of Citizens Advice Bureaux Trust (Friends)

Friends raises money and distributes funds as grants to bureaux in need.  Supporting Friends provides a unique opportunity for companies and charitable trusts to invest in people by backing essential CAB services.

Since Friends was established in 1991, it has made over 883 grants to bureaux, totalling nearly £2 million. Most awards are relatively small, but each one makes a significant difference and a direct contribution to helping bureaux deliver the best service possible.

As a flexible grant maker, Friends can establish special grant schemes, either in response to new and urgent Citizens Advice service priorities or to reflect donor interests, for example distributing funds to designated geographical areas or for specific needs.

Friends is always in need of funds to continue and extend its existing oversubscribed grant schemes, especially for essential equipment.

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