Herts CABx working to beat the recession

Marian Hurle
Director Stevenage CAB on behalf of Herts CABx

Back in January 2009
The demand for debt advice at CABx across Herts was increasing at an alarming rate. The overall number of enquiries had risen by 28% compared with the previous year and in parts of the County debt enquiries were up 43%.

All through the next quarter it kept rising and we knew that we could not deal with this unprecedented level of demand without additional resources.

We had heard through Citizens Advice (our national body) that Cambridgeshire County Council had given a large lump sum to CAB to help with recession enquiries. From talking to a wide variety of contacts it became clear that now was the time to make a bid to Herts County Council.

We wrote to Herts County Council outlining the evidence that we were getting in the Bureau of additional people needing help. We put forward a County wide solution by pairing CABx across the County and requesting 1 post for each pair of Bureau. This would also enable us to target resources where the demand was greatest.

The second part of the bid was to increase the capacity of our volunteer work force. We recognise that not every client needs to see a specialist and want to train 100 volunteers to give debt advice to those clients who are more able to help themselves.

Success!
After several months, a number of meetings and providing ever more data we heard that we had been successful in getting the funding for the project. The funding is coming from the County part of the Performance Reward Grant. Like most of the voluntary sector we had no idea what “pot” at County we should apply to – we just knew we had to take action.

We are currently recruiting for the paid posts and have had an excellent response. 151 information packs were sent out and 60 application forms returned.

We hope to soon be helping an additional 3000 people across the County with their debt problems – really making a difference.


Remember to visit www.myhertslaa.net!