All our impact
Each year, Citizens Advice helps give millions of people the knowledge and confidence to find a way forward. We do this by providing advice, education and support, and influencing policies and practices that affect the people we help.
Our impact in 2024-25
Amidst a prolonged decline in living standards, we’re helping more people than ever whose income isn’t enough to cover the essentials like food, energy and housing.
The problems that people face are increasingly complex and more than half of those we help with debt advice have a negative budget. This means their income isn’t enough to cover their essential costs, even after being helped by one of our advisers.
We exist to shape a society where people face far fewer problems. We are taking a missions-based approach to our organisational strategy to respond to the ever more complex challenges faced by the people we help and a volatile external climate, focusing on areas which will make the biggest difference.
In 2024-25 we:
Helped 2.71 million people with one-to-one advice across England and Wales
Had 44 million visits to our website, with 61 million page views
Helped write off an average of £16,303 in debts per person we helped and identified an average of £7,685 additional annual income
And 85% of people using our local services would recommend them to a friend
Our latest impact report highlights the impact we have on people’s lives and the difference we make to local communities.
Read our full 2024-25 impact report.
We couldn’t achieve all we do without our incredible, dedicated volunteers and our amazing partners.
You can also read more about our impact in Wales.
Our value to society
Using a Treasury-approved model, in 2024-25, for every £1 spent on Citizens Advice, we benefitted our clients by £13.48. We saved government and public services £783 million. We estimate our total social and economic value to society to be £5.3 billion.
This is a minimum return. We haven’t tried to monetise everything, sticking instead to what we know and can firmly evidence, using credible costings and proxies to illustrate our value to society. Against the backdrop of millions of individuals with different needs and the transformative effect that advice can have, we acknowledge that our findings here are simplified and likely to underplay our true value.
For further details on how we’ve produced our financial estimate, we’ve put together a full technical annex.
Our previous impact reports
In 2015, we published our first impact report, demonstrating how all of our activities and the way we work come together to help people find a way forward: benefiting individuals, government and society.
Using a Treasury-approved model, we can also put a financial estimate on our value. For further details on how we’ve produced our financial estimate, we’ve put together full technical annexes to our reports.
Our impact in 2023-24 and the technical annex.
Our impact in 2022-23 and the technical annex.
Our impact in 2021-22 and the technical annex.
Our impact in 2020-21 and the technical annex.
Our impact in 2019-20 and the technical annex.
Our impact in 2017-18 and the technical annex.
Our impact in 2015-16 and the technical annex.
Our impact in 2014-15 and the technical annex.
Why we're needed
Life is complicated. Sometimes people face challenges and problems they don’t know how to deal with, and need help to overcome. In 2024 to 2025:
75% of people said their problem was resolved following our advice
74% of people found us easy to access
85% of people said they would recommend the service
We understand that people’s problems overlap and intersect. People don’t just need help with one issue - they need different types of support at various times in their life. Last year, we advised the people we help on an average of more than 5 issues each. Our information and advice is available to everyone. Structural inequalities lead to certain people facing disadvantages, making them more likely to need our help, and we prioritise their needs.
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We have a responsibility and are committed to understanding the difference we make to the people we work with and communities across England and Wales.
Understanding our intended impact and what we actually achieved is vital.