A celebration of the 85th anniversary of the Citizens Advice service was held in Broadstairs yesterday (September 12).
The service opened its first office on September 4, 1939 – the day after war was declared.
From the start, volunteers ran the service working from public buildings and private houses. Advisers dealt with problems relating to the loss of ration books, homelessness and evacuation. They also helped locate missing relatives and prisoners of war. Debt quickly became a key issue as income reduced due to call-ups.
Over the decades the service has contributed to changes in government policy, from the implementation of evacuation in 1944 for those in cities being bombed to an amendment to the Housing Bill to include a tenancy deposit protection scheme in 2004.
In Thanet, the Margate Citizens Advice office opened in December 1939. Records from between that time until 1966 do not appear to have been kept but notes from a meeting in 1966 comment on the “complex and perplexing” world people were living in.
The service also has an office in Ramsgate’s Plains of Waterloo.
At the 85th celebration Citizens Advice staff and volunteers were joined by members of local organisations, including SEK, councillors and both Ramsgate and Margate mayors.
Thanet service chief officer Angela Drew-Robinson spoke of joining in 2002 as a trainee volunteer and of the many changes over the years.
She said: “It’s been amazing. When I started it was still all paper and pen with a library of paperwork and reference books, all very different to what it is now.”
Angela spoke of how she and the service had helped people from those who took out pay day loans with a whopping 2,000% interest to those paying huge amounts because of pre-payment meters for energy.
She also highlighted the changes to online, particularly during the pandemic, and the ongoing impact of the cost of living crisis.
She added: “Volunteers are the backbone of our service. We are so fortunate to have these people willing to give up their time, we could not be here without them.”
Funding was also highlighted. Citizens Advice is a charity and the Thanet service receives support through the National Lottery, Thanet and Ramsgate councils, Kent Community Foundation and the UK Shared Prosperity Scheme as well as donations from individuals.
The advice service collaborates with organisations such as SEK on projects that have previously included Ageing Better programme to improve lives for people over 50, reducing isolation and boosting mental health and wellbeing.
Advisor Samuel Phillips also spoke about the outreach scheme he and colleague Sam Stone head up to offer advice on a range of issues from housing, debt, benefits, family advice and more.
Citizens Advice Thanet partnered up with churches, children’s centres, charities, food banks, libraries and community groups across the isle to bring services to residents.
The outreach project, which has been funded over three years with £300,000 from the National Lottery is aimed at bringing advice to those who need it most.
Samuel said at the beginning of the year there was a target to reach 500 people but this has been surpassed with 1059 clients receiving advice.
Clare Moriarty, the Chief Executive of Citizens Advice National, also spoke at the event.
Find Citizens Advice Thanet at: https://thanetcitizensadvice.org/
Citizens Advice helping to solve problems since 1939
- 1935: The Government is considering the need for an information service linked to the fledgling social welfare service.
- 1938: The prospect of a world war looms so the National Council of Social Services (the forerunner of today’s National Council for Voluntary Organisations) establishes a group to look at how to meet the needs of the civilian population in war time. “Citizens Advice Bureaux should be established throughout the country, particularly in the large cities and industrial areas where social disorganisation may be acute.”
- 3 September 1939: War is declared.
- 4 September 1939: The first 200 bureaux open.
- 1942: The number of bureaux peaks at 1,074 and one even operates out of a converted horse box that parks near bombed areas.
- 1950s: Despite the success of Citizens Advice Bureaux, funding from the Ministry of Health is cut after the war, and by 1953 the number of bureaux has halved. The service continues thanks to the support of charitable trusts such as the Nuffield Foundation, Carnegie Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
- 1957: The Rent Act results in a big increase in enquiries.
- 1960: Funding from the Government for the national body is restored.
- 1960s: A quarter of enquiries relate to housing and the number of bureaux has reduced from 1,074 to 416.
- 1965: The national total for enquiries reaches 1.25 million.
- 1970s: Consumer protection becomes a priority.
- 1973: A development grant from the Government is given to the national charity, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (NACAB), to extend the network.
- 1980s: Two recessions mean a growth in poverty and enquiries rise in line with this.
- 1990s: Changes to the benefit system and work practices generate a large proportion of the enquiries bureaux receive.
- 1999: www.adviceguide.org.uk is launched, allowing people to access advice online 24 hours a day. The service celebrates its Diamond Jubilee and launches Advice Week.
- 2000s: Debt, housing and employment continue to be key problems that Citizens Advice Bureaux deal with, particularly in relation to asylum issues.
- 2002: The service receives a £20 million grant from the Government’s Capital Modernisation Fund to provide IT infrastructure to roll out e-government services to Citizens Advice service clients.
- 2003: Adviceguide self-help content is made available in Welsh, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu and visits continue to increase, extending access to our advice to those who cannot use the local service.
- 2003: The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux changes its name to Citizens Advice and, in Wales, to Citizens Advice Cymru (Cyngor ar Bopeth Cymru).
- 2003: Citizens Advice Bureaux become the first in the advice sector to audit the quality of their advice.
- 2003: An independently commissioned review of the service by the Office for Public Management concludes that “the Citizens Advice service provides excellent value in return for the public funding it receives. It makes a significant contribution to individuals and communities, as well as to the process of policy-making and service delivery. Its holistic approach, national coverage and independence are to be cherished.”
- 2004: After a ten year campaign using evidence from Citizens Advice service clients, the Government added an amendment to the Housing Bill to include a tenancy deposit protection scheme.
- 4 September 2009: Citizens Advice service celebrates its 70th birthday.
- 2011/12: Citizens Advice Bureaux deliver advice services from over 3,400 community locations in England and Wales, run by 360 registered charities, helping people to resolve their legal, money and other problems by providing free advice and information, and by influencing policymakers. The network relies on 22,200 trained volunteers to keep the service running, and provides advice from in person in bureaux as well as by phone, in people’s homes and via the internet. Visits to the Adviceguide self-help website, have risen to over 11 million.
- 2012/13: More than two million people came to the service for face-to-face or phone advice. More than 12 million people used the digital services. The service launches its first equality strategy
- April 2014: Consumer Futures (formerly Consumer Focus), which is responsible for representing consumers of regulated industries (energy and post), transferred to Citizens Advice.
- 4 September 2014: Citizens Advice service celebrates its 75th birthday.
- April 2015: Citizens Advice took on 2 new services. The Citizens Advice network provides the face-to-face service for Pension Wise. The Citizens Advice Witness Service provides free, independent support for witnesses in criminal courts in England and Wales.
- 2016: The EU referendum leads to spikes in enquiries about Brexit. For the first time, the number of people accessing citizensadvice.org.uk via mobile is higher than those using a laptop and desktop. The government announces a ban on letting agents’ fees after years of Citizens Advice campaigning.
- 2017: Citizens Advice presents evidence on problems with the Universal Credit rollout to the government. After months of campaigning, the government announces £1.5 billion in extra funding. The Supreme Court rules that employment tribunal fees are unlawful after years of Citizens Advice campaigning to make fees fairer.
- 2018: The service issues a super-complaint on the ‘loyalty penalty’ showing loyal customers pay too much for services like broadband and persuades energy networks to give money back to people in Great Britain after finding that they made £7.5 billion in excess profits.
- 2019: The online advice pages are visited 29 million times, the highest annual figure ever recorded.
- 2020 to 2021: The coronavirus pandemic causes unprecedented challenges for the service and the people it helps. Citizens Advice expands the phone service, webchat and digital advice online to continue to support people when it became unsafe to deliver face to face support. The service answers 60,000 more Adviceline calls and 6,000 more Help to Claim calls from January to March 2020 than during the same time the previous year.
- 2021 to 2022: As people slowly navigate their way through life post-lockdowns, the year is another extremely challenging one. Covid-19 support measures largely come to an end in autumn 2021, including the £20 rise in weekly Universal Credit that had been a lifeline for people. Gas prices soar and dozens of energy suppliers fail. Energy bills rise and spark a cost-of-living crisis. People come to the service with more urgent and complex problems than ever before. Despite these challenges, staff and volunteers remain resilient and help 2.55 million people directly. The advice website has over 40.6 million visits.
- 2022 to 2023: As the cost-of-living crisis deepens, the service sets up a publicly available data dashboard to track the impact of the crisis, showing how the situation differs by location, and how different demographic groups are affected. Representatives hold monthly data briefings where policy makers, civil servants , journalists and peers working across private, public and charity sectors sign up to hear the expert commentary. Ofgem launches a ban on forced installation of pre-payment meters, something Citizens Advice campaigned for.
