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.
During 2006/07, £5,736,000 was spent on developing and maintaining our IT network.
Citizens Advice provides an IT support service to bureaux, ensuring stability of the network and continues to develop new IT solutions to improve and advance bureau effectiveness.
Evidence provided by bureaux forms the basis of our campaigning and policy work. In 2006/07, 65 per cent of our evidence came through on our electronic client case reporting system. This year Citizens Advice introduced an online search tool to analyse bureau evidence. In addition to identifying issues, we can build a profile of those liable to experience a problem.
The following outlines performance against the objectives for 2006/07 as stated in the 2005/06 annual report:
During 2006/07 we have:
- increased the number of bureaux using our electronic case recording system to 90 per cent
- introduced an online evidence search tool to allow quicker and more efficient searching for CAB evidence
- started the process of developing a unified IT support network to enable all areas of the service to work together.
During 2006/07 we were unable to:
- achieve a 95 per cent use of our electronic client management system amongst bureaux. There was a 90 per cent take up, and we aim to increase this during 2007/08.
Next year we will:
- improve the functionality of CABlink, the intranet site for the service
- update our electronic case recording system so bureaux can analyse their own data, record diagnostic interviews, and simplify data entry methods
- put the infrastructure in place to allow us to develop single telephone number for the CAB service.
6.2m: The number of visits to our online advice website, Adviceguide during the year.
20,614: The number of volunteers in the service.
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