Benefits, Debt and Employment Enquiries Up Sharply

Citizens Advice said today at its AGM that its network of offices across Northern Ireland are continuing to experience very heavy pressure of demand, as the recession continues to bite in Northern Ireland.  More affluent and professional clients are now seeking advice, and enquiries about business debt are also growing.  This increased demand is unsurprising against a backdrop of a 184% increase in redundancies in Northern Ireland in the year to August 2009 and the number of unemployment claimants rising by 83% over the same period. This trend is also reinforced by a marked increase in the number of mortgage repossession cases occurring in Northern Ireland – 1974 in the 6 months January to June 2009. 

Derek Alcorn, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice said,
“As the recession and unemployment impacts on families, Citizens Advice offices across Northern Ireland are taking the strain and dealing with a growing and more complex workload. In addition to debt issues running at 1000 per week, a 20% increase on the same period last year, we have also seen a 20% increase in enquiries concerning social security benefits and a 9.8% rise in employment related issues.”

Working with the Social Security Agency on the 2008-2009 Benefit Uptake Project, Citizens Advice has identified £5.7 million of unclaimed benefits which have now been paid to some of the most needy and vulnerable people within Northern Ireland. In addition, and over the same period, the Dealing with Debt service has dealt with over £24.3 million of debt relating to more than 2,400 clients and 6,830 individual debts – a significant achievement.

With the expected cuts to public expenditure and the contraction of public services which will follow, it is expected that this pressure of demand will grow for the foreseeable future.  Many of the cases which are being seen are of great complexity and there has been a knock on consequence in terms of the workload and stress on frontline advisers and the resources needed to deliver an effective and professional service on an ongoing basis.

Derek Alcorn went on to say that:
“Independent monitoring statistics from British Telecom indicate that the CAB network continues to receive over 1 million telephone calls per year.  While this underlines the trusted position in which we are held by the public, the scale of this is industrial, and we are investing in a new telephone infrastructure to enable us to meet this. Expanding and enhancing access to advice and information services is central to meeting the coming challenges brought about by the current economic climate and the use of technology is a major service enabler, but this comes at a significant cost to the organisation. Citizens Advice is working to become part of the digital revolution in delivering help to people over the phone, by email and online via self service web sites, and as an organisation will continue to exploit new technologies in order to deliver improved customer service.”

It is a measure of the scale of demand that the DSD created 150 new posts in Jobs and Benefit Offices earlier this year. In Britain £10m was made available to the advice sector last December to cope with the recession and enable CAB to extend opening hours. Similar help to Citizens Advice in Northern Ireland would not go amiss.