Citizens Advice provides most of the training and skills development for the 26,082 people who work across the service. The majority of our workforce are trained volunteers. During 2005/06 we spent £4,156,000 training and developing our people to provide quality services.
Citizens Advice runs over 2,000 training events each year for paid staff and volunteers involved in the service. For bureau advisers, largely volunteers, our flexible approach to training helps them build skills and confidence at their own pace. Our training results in a valued accredited qualification and 29 per cent of CAB advisers who leave us go on to paid employment. During 2005/06, 1,483 new CAB advisers qualified to provide advice on the full range of issues our clients face, from dealing with mounting debts to unfair dismissal.
During 2005/06 we said that we would:
- offer more training in priority areas, particularly equalities
- fully integrate our new IT products for advisers into adviser training to maximise their use
- review the competences needed for bureau managers and trustee board members
- offer training consultancy to bureaux
- explore new and efficient methods of delivering training
- generate income from the sale of training courses and materials to other advice organisations.
During this year we have:
- updated the equalities elements of our courses
- launched training materials to support IT skills development within bureaux
- developed courses that make use of e-learning including one on welfare benefits
- launched an online course booking facility for bureaux
- created a range of short online ‘bite size’ learning courses on a range issues, including employment
- introduced a management development programme for Citizens Advice staff
- been unable to generate the income we had intended from training courses and materials.
Next year we will:
- develop a certificate programme for new advisers reflecting changes in advice giving methods
- seek more income from our training courses and materials
- develop more blended learning courses for advisers and bureau managers.
1,483 of our volunteers completed their adviser training, 11 per cent more than in 2004/05.
We provided over 2,000 training events for the 26,082 people working across the service
29 per cent of the volunteer advisers who left the service moved to a paid job.
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