Citizens Advice wins £1.2m Money Advice Contract

Citizens Advice has announced the award of an £1.2m contract by DETI to provide face-to-face money advice in Northern Ireland.  The contract, which will run to March 2011, was awarded by public tender and provides for some 12 full time money advice workers and a central research and development post in Citizens Advice.

Welcoming the Department’s decision, Derek Alcorn the Chief Executive of Citizens Advice said the award of the contract had several significant features:

• Firstly, the contract has been commissioned against a background of growing economic difficulty, falling house prices and a tightening of credit which will put many people into financial difficulty.
• Secondly, government has placed this work by open competition via public tender-we see this as part of the developing social economy in Northern Ireland and welcome the opportunity to bid for public tenders in competition with the private sector.
• Thirdly, we expect that the information gathered by the contract on the structure and profile of debt in Northern Ireland will inform future government policy.

The project will support debt advisers in a number of advice centres across Northern Ireland both inside and outside the CAB network.  In the 12 months to March 2007, a similar contract funded by DETI dealt with debts totalling over £15 million.  On average the 2006/07 contract helped some 160 new clients per month as well as continuing to assist existing clients.