§ Mr. Alfred Dubs (Battersea, South)I welcome this opportunity to say something about the work of citizens advice bureaux and their important contribution to the needs of many people. The debate also gives me a chance to refer to the extra burden facing citizens advice bureaux as a result of economic and social factors mainly arising from the increase in unemployment.
The structure of the citizens advice bureaux in England, Wales and Northern Ireland—there is a separate set-up for Scotland—is a head office in London, 20 regional offices, and a network of about 720 local bureaux which give advice to people living in the local community.
The function of the head office is to support the local bureaux, advise them on changes in legislation and advise on how to deal with queries. It also provides support for staff training. In the head office, regional offices and local bureaux there are 334 paid full-time staff and about 900 part-time staff. These help and support the work of more than 10,000 volunteers. Surely that ratio of a fairly small number of full and part-time staff supporting, helping and controlling the work of a large number volunteers is to be welcomed, and encouraged, by the Minister.
Over the past 10 years there has been a major increase in the number of inquiries to citizens advice bureaux. Ten years ago there were about 1½ million inquiries a year in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. By last year the staggering total was 4½ million inquiries a year. The queries cover a range of problems and anxieties. However, the main headings are inquiries dealing with unemployment, social security, housing, personal inquiries relating to matrimony, divorce and child custody, and consumer queries.
My principal anxiety relates to the increasing burden on citizens advice bureaux as a result of the first two categories—unemployment and social security. About three years ago the Royal Commission on Legal Services said in its report:
We have reached the conclusions that the primary need is for a competent and accessible national network of generalist advice or information to citizens on any problem".The report recommended thatThe CAB should provide the basic generalist advice serviceand added thatCAB should be financed out of public funds".The Government clearly welcome the contribution of citizens advice bureaux because there are several Government leaflets on entitlements and services in which people in difficulties are recommended to go to their local citizens advice bureaux for assistance.I said that inquiries currently number 4½ million a year. They can be broken down under main headings. There was a 50 per cent. increase in social security inquiries in 1981–82 over the previous year. Employment inquiries rose by 14 per cent. The total number of inquiries increased by 10 per cent.
In London there were just under 1 million inquiries. Last year social security inquiries increased by 60 per cent. over the previous year. Inquiries on employment increased by 35 per cent. The total number of inquiries increased by 17 per cent. There were more than 13,000 inquiries in Wandsworth last year and, compared with the previous 1175 year, those concerning social security increased by 46 per cent., as did the number about employment matters. The total number rose by 23 per cent.
It is fairly clear that bureaux help the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the community. A survey of CAB clients in London boroughs in November last year and January this year showed that only about one-third of clients had jobs. Of those who were not working, more than half were claiming supplementary benefits.
Bureaux provide particularly important services to ethnic minority groups. In Wandsworth it is estimated that 40 per cent. of inquiries come from black and Asian people. The figure in Tower Hamlets is 42 per cent. and in Brent the proportion is 65 per cent. Most bureaux clients are on low incomes. It is estimated that in most London boroughs more than 30 per cent. of clients have incomes of less that £50 a week and the vast majority have incomes of less than £100 a week.
The increased pressures on bureaux stem from four factors—unemployment, recent legislative changes, increased pressure on other public services and the financial difficulties into which people have been falling increasingly in recent years.
It is obvious that unemployed clients have less money and an increased need for statutory support. The worst affected are those who were low paid, the disabled, single parents and those previously on fixed incomes. The consequence for CABs has been an increase in inquiries. In some inner city and depressed areas the increases have been quite staggering. I should like to quote some figures that are even more dramatic than those that I gave earlier. Last year, compared with the year before, inquiries in the West Midlands about social security increased by 115 per cent. and in Staffordshire they increased by 142 per cent.
In my borough of Wandsworth social security inquiries increased by 100 per cent. from October 1981 to October 1982, while housing inquiries rose by 53 per cent. and employment inquiries went up by 51 per cent. I appreciate that some of the extra burden in Wandsworth must be a consequence of Wandsworth council's closure of an effective network of law centres. People had to go elsewhere for advice and that imposed extra burdens on the local bureau.
When people have difficulties with their jobs or become unemployed, it is the function of CABs to give advice on employment protection, entitlement to reduncancy and the range of State benefits that may be available to clients. Let me quote an example from the southern part of the country. A man worked for six and a half years for a small decorating firm before receiving a letter from his employer saying that due to lack of work he was being temporarily laid off.
That man was refused unemployment benefit because, technically, he was still employed. As he was receiving no wages, he went to a citizens advice bureau for help in claiming supplementary benefit. That was a complicated problem and the man benefited from the advice of the CAB.
The second main cause of the increased burden on CABs results from recent legislative changes, including employment legislation, changes in sick pay arrangements and the new supplementary benefits scheme. A number of other legislative changes have taken place or are due to take place, such as the change to payment of child benefit monthly instead of weekly, the proposals for a unified housing benefit, the complicated changes brought about by 1176 the British Nationality Act and changes resulting from housing legislation. All those have meant that individuals have desperately needed advice and increasing numbers have turned to CABs for help.
I can give the House an example of the complexity of the problems that need help and advice. An unemployed man in the North of England, who was not receiving unemployment benefit, went to stay temporarily with his mother in law because she was ill. The local DHSS office included his home, which was temporarily empty, as a capital resource and the man's supplementary benefit was withdrawn. He could not sell his home because he intended to move back into it as soon as his mother in law had recovered from her illness or had been moved into hospital. He could not move her into his home because she was too ill. That is typical of the complicated problems with which CABs have been dealing in recent years.
The third main cause of the additional burden on CABs is the increased pressure on other public services, especially local DHSS offices. There cannot be an hon. Member who is not aware of the enormously increased burden on DHSS offices and the increasing number of complaints about difficulties in getting problems dealt with and clear statements about entitlement to benefits.
I understand that the Minister for Consumer Affairs, who is to reply to the debate, is not responsible for that matter, but the problem is well known and is causing much anxiety. People go to their local CAB, if not straight to their Member, for help and advice. I do not need to go through all the difficulties that arise from the extra burden laid on local DHSS offices, which have not been given a compensating increase in staff to cope with the problems.
Cuts and changes in other services have also increased the burden on CABs. Jobcentres, unemployment benefit offices and local authority social service departments have all suffered cuts in the resources available to them and that has resulted in individuals having to go elsewhere for advice.
I can illustrate the problem by quoting the example of a case in south London that was handled by a citizens advice bureau. It concerned a financial difficulty and was so complicated that the interview with the client lasted between an hour and an hour and a half.
I have a word of praise for the Minister, because I know that in the current financial year he has increased funding for CABs nationally by 16 per cent. If I did not mention that, the Minister would do so. It is a good thing, it is much appreciated and it is useful. However, it is argued not that funds for CABs have been cut, but that the extra resources, some from the Government and some from local authorities, have not been sufficient to keep pace with the increased demand. That is my main argument.
About 60 per cent. of CABs receive less than £5,000 a year and 80 per cent. get less than £10,000 a year. The position is a little happier in London, although, of course, the burdens are much greater there. The consequence of inadequate funding is that CABs are open for fewer hours of the day than they ought to be. About half the citizens advice bureaux are not able to open for more than 20 hours a week and fewer than one in five are able to provide a full-time service. I have already mentioned the very small proportion of full-time staff and also the very small proportion of paid staff.
In some areas, about one in 10 of the local population go to citizens advice bureaux for help. In some parts of the country—the example of Camden has been given to 1177 me—the figure can be as high as one in three. This indicates an enormous potential demand. Further evidence of the demand for help is shown by those areas where new local offices have been established in recent years. In Bristol, there was a 30 per cent. increase in two years in the number of inquiries. In Sheffield, there was a 14 per cent. increase in inquiries in a five-year period following the opening of a new office. When a new office was opened in Leeds, the number of inquiries went up from 2,000 to 10,000 in six years. I could quote many similar examples from different parts of the country.
There has been a 16 per cent. increase in national inquiries to the head office. To forestall the possible comment of the Minister, I accept that in my area of Wandsworth there has been increased funding of local citizens advice bureaux by the local authority but this is partly in the nature of conscience money because of the enormous saving that has been made through cutting law centres. It is compensation for the closing of the law centres rather than any sign of good will on the part of the local authority.
The present level of funding to citizens advice bureaux nationally from the Government is, I understand, £5¾ million, which includes the increase to which I have already referred. Of this, about £1 million is used by the national organisation to channel money for particular and limited needs to local citizens advice bureaux. The conditions under which this is done are, I understand, the subject of an agreement between the national organisation and the Minister. The main responsibility for supporting the work of local bureaux does not rest with central Government. Nor does it rest with the national organisation which does not possess the resources. It rests with local authorities. The difficulty is that local authorities have been under such intense financial pressure that they have been unable to respond to needs and requests from local citizens advice bureaux.
I should like the Minister to consider two proposals. The first proposal, the more ambitious, is that the Minister should issue guidance to local authorities to ensure that they give enough resources to their local citizens advice bureaux to meet increasing needs. That is perhaps the more optimistic request that I make. There is also a more modest one. Because of the variable response by local authorities to needs in their areas, and because of the pressure under which they are working, I should like the Minister to consider increasing the funding to the central citizens advice bureaux organisation so that more money is available to be given to local bureaux in circumstances of special needs or particular pressures.
I am not suggesting that there should be a complete change in the basis of funding from local to national level. Nor would I wish to give local authorities the excuse to cut the money to citizens advice bureaux on the basis that the Government will step in. Far from it. I am suggesting that additional resources should be made available, on carefully worked out criteria agreed with the Minister, when local bureaux face particular pressures and difficulties that might result in a reduction in their opening hours, or in their closure. I want the central organisation to be able to step in and to ensure that the service can be kept going, or to ensure that some additional resources are available to cope with a heavy extra burden.
1178 I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic. I think that he will agree that citizens advice bureaux provide a valuable and essential service for many people. It is important that when people go for advice they have some chance of getting it, and that the pressures on local offices are not such that people are turned away or are unable to get the help that they need.
§ Mr. Peter Bottomley (Woolwich, West)I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) on raising this topic. All hon. Members are aware of the growing requests and need for advice. Like the citizens advice bureaux, hon. Members have been aware over the years of the increasing number of people who have problems and want someone to share them and, if possible, to give advice or direct them on to the most appropriate service or authority for further action. Occasionally during debates on hon. Members' pay I hear the argument that the nature of the work has altered. Some old-fashioned hon. Members say that it is wrong to support the kind of welfare work that dominates so much of our time. This should give all hon. Members an insight into the attitude of the volunteers and the paid staff of the citizens advice bureaux who are as determined as hon. Members to give the most effective possible help to those in trouble or in need, whether that relates to their financial resources or to advice.
Hon. Members, especially those who serve on the Standing Committees of social security Bills, will understand the complexity of our social security network—the inter-relating benefits and the various complications in establishing qualification for help. All these matters, with others, are the daily work of the citizens advice bureaux. I do not intend to repeat the statistical information given by the hon. Member for Battersea, South. I pay tribute to the manner in which he and other hon. Members spend much time on individual case work requirements of constituents. I draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister to one possible way in which the work of the citizens advice bureaux can be used to the advantage of the Government and of local authorities. Establishing the case for extra financial resources as and when available seems important.
I should like to believe that local authorities and central Government will monitor the changes and trend of cases brought to citizens advice bureaux. I recognise that the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux issues a good deal of analysis to hon. Members which shows what work is done. I am not, however, convinced that various Government Departments and local authority departments take the remedial steps to enable more people to understand what they can do about their plight without having to go to citizens advice bureaux or other offices.
Th hon. Member for Battersea, South referred to the large number of poor people and members of ethnic minorities who seek help or advice. That illustrates the need to get more information to those people and illustrates the other side of the coin that people who are better off have improved access to remedial action or advice when they face problems. Everyone faces problems. It is a question of how many of us have the resources of knowledge or money to deal with them.
I should like to believe that local authority housing departments conduct a six-monthly review with citizens advice bureaux to see what action housing departments can 1179 take to alleviate, reduce and avoid the problems on which people seek advice from citizens advice bureaux. That would be a useful way in which citizens advice bureaux could argue for greater funding from local authorities. If it were possible to use the wisdom and experience of citizens advice bureaux to run the housing department more efficiently, the savings would be enormous. It would be possible to tighten up the housing allocation policy so that it became fairer and more effective. More homes would be occupied and there would be fewer voids in terms of property letting. That must save far more than any possible increased allocation to a local citizens advice bureau service.
The same argument applies to Government. Although I realise that my hon. Friend the Minister is speaking for the Department of Trade, his previous experience at the Department of Health and Social Security may lead him to allude in his reply to the experiments that are going on between citizens advice bureaux and local DHSS offices in using—I hope—computer terminals to see what benefits people are entitled to and how to spread that electronic help to people working in both the volunteer and the departmental sides of social security.
I should like to spend a moment on the family issues side of the work of the citizens advice bureaux. It is a matter that gets less attention than it should. I declare an interest here as chairman of Family Forum, a family organisation which brings together about 100 national and local voluntary organisations dealing with the various issues of family policies. It is important to use the experience of citizens advice bureaux and other local centres of advice and experience to try to make sure that what help is available in cases of family distress, disadvantage or handicap becomes part of the common culture and knowledge, and to bring to people's attention the fact that they should and can take earlier action to obtain reassurance, guidance or help. I realise that in every locality citizens advice bureaux are making referrals to child guidance clinics, the National Marriage Guidance Council and similar organisations, and to the various specialist bodies and statutory agencies which can provide someone to listen to problems, and often give practical help or advice. I hope that substantial extra recognition of the developing work of the citizens advice bureaux will make it possible for that network of resources to become better known and to be better spread throughout each local community.
I do not intend to go on as long as perhaps I should in developing this theme, because I understand that other hon. Members wish to speak in this short debate. However, I should like to spend the last few moments on developing the use of volunteers. Citizens advice bureaux have followed the line which was developed at about the same time as, for example, the Pre-School Playgroups Association, which has shown how a small amount of central and local government help has provided enormous benefit. I welcome the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services in c. 389 of the Official Report of yesterday, 27 May, on increasing the opportunities for volunteering among the unemployed. It brings out a point that was implied by the hon. Member for Battersea, South that the more people are involved as volunteers in helping, the more can people who are part of the ordinary community, even outside the citizens advice bureaux office itself, help themselves and others. I feel strongly that the more we can help others, the more 1180 we are likely to help ourselves, and the more we can help ourselves, the more we shall be encouraged to provide assistance to others.
I look on the citizens advice bureaux network as one of the greatest developments in this country in the past 10 or 20 years. In my view, its work load will increase. Even as we become better off, I believe that its work load will increase, just as the work load on the National Health Service has increased as our material standard of living has improved. I welcome the initiation of this debate, and I hope that it will receive a favourable response not only from my hon. Friend the Minister but from local authorities throughout the country.
§ Mr. Edward Lyons (Bradford, West)I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) on introducing this debate. People outside do rot appreciate that it is limited to 45 minutes, and that I have only one minute to speak before the Minister rises. So may I say, in the briefest possible way, thay we on the Social Democratic Party Benches support the existence and enlarged activities of the citizens advice bureaux. In Yorkshire and Humberside, unemployment has doubled during the past two years. Not surprisingly, the number of unemployment and social security benefits has risen by 94 per cent. in the same period. Bradford has higher than average unemployment. The bureau there does a marvellous job. We want the Government to continue to look but more benevolently than at present at the needs of the citizens advice bureaux.
I am afraid that that is all that time allows me to say.
§ The Minister for Consumer Affairs (Dr. Gerard Vaughan)First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) on bringing this important issue before the House. We were all interested to hear his extremely constructive comments and also the brief comments of the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), as well as those of my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley). We are well aware of the great amount of work that my hon. Friend has done in this connection and the tremendous activities that he has generated with Family Forum, which is a most important body.
I listened with great care to the hon. Member for Battersea, South. I am sympathetic to the points that were raised. Some of the impressive figures that were given show how the work has increased. A working group has been set up by the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux working closely with the Departments of Industry and Trade to look into the subject of computers and to consider whether more use could be made of them. It is important that we should have a better idea of where the changes are taking place in the work to see whether, by looking at the information somewhat differently, we could increase the effectiveness and help that are given through the service.
Our citizens advice bureaux are a major national asset—the envy, indeed, of many other countries without a comparable system. As we have already heard, we have nearly 1,000 bureaux that are serviced by over 10,000 voluntary workers. The hon. Gentleman was right when he said that they are run by a relatively small professional staff. I would accept the views of my hon. Friend about 1181 this relationship and the numbers of professionals and volunteers rather than those of the hon. Member for Battersea, South, because citizens advice bureaux are an excellent example of how a small number of professional people, properly trained and deployed, can run a large number of volunteers, who, of course, bring a rather different approach to their work. They do not have to do the work in the way that a professional has to do it. They bring a fresh and valuable approach. I see the citizens advice bureaux as a most desirable example of how the volunteer can work effectively with the professional. Moreover, a large proportion of the money that we provide centrally is spent on seeing that the professionals train the volunteers properly and that there are courses to provide the expertise that they need.
The dedication, competence and impartiality of the service are known to all who are in contact with it. All hon. Members know, through their own surgeries, how helpful the citizens advice bureaux can be and know of the interchange between the two. The bureaux offer free—that is important—and confidential advice on some 4 million inquiries a year. That is a tremendous contribution to the welfare of our community.
The hon. Member for Battersea, South rightly emphasised that the demands on the citizens advice bureaux are increasing. It is not only the crude total of inquiries that is increasing. There is also a good deal of evidence that the kinds of inquiries are becoming more complex. For example, financial problems are becoming more complicated and frequent. It is now quite a common experience for bureau workers to discover that what appears to be a straightforward problem, say an unpaid bill, is only the tip of the iceberg and that several other much more fundamental difficulties lie underneath for the family concerned.
It is the Government's recognition of the mounting burden of work as well as a warm respect for the service that has led us to increase Government grant-in-aid support for the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. The grant in 1979–80, under the previous Government, was £1.85 million. We increased it in the following year to more than £4 million. I was delighted that, shortly after taking up my present appointment, we were able to increase that amount again to £5.757 million for this year. During the whole period from 1979–80 to 1982–83, support for NACAB will have increased by over 100 per cent. in real terms—a remarkable affirmation, in difficult economic circumstances, of the importance that we attach to the service and to the work of NACAB within it.
The hon. Member for Battersea, South spoke about Wandsworth, of which he has great experience. He will know that there are three citizens advice bureaux under the Wandsworth borough council—one at Wandsworth, one at Battersea and one at Roehampton. The Roehampton branch does about half of the work of the other two, but about 40 per cent. of its inquiries are repeat ones. That is a sign of how complicated some of the issues are. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to say that the money allocated had been increased. It has been increased considerably. For the area that he represents, the figures are nothing like the general ones that he mentioned. In 1980, the contribution from the borough council to the three offices was £120,000. In 1981 it was £154,000 and for 1982–83 it is £185,000. That is quite substantial 1182 support from the local council. I sympathise, however, in that I know that the hon. Gentleman will not think that that is sufficient.
Two fair and proper questions may be put about the way in which bureaux are funded. The first is whether the best possible use is being made of the money that the Government provide. The second is whether the Government could or should do more to support individual grass roots bureaux which, in the last resort, are the raison d'être of the whole programme.
Part of our grant supports the administrative overheads of NACAB's headquarters organisation and the machinery, elected by the service as a whole, which determines policy and establishes standards on a national basis. But the bulk—over 80 per cent., NACAB estimates—is spent in one way or another on direct support for individual bureaux throughout the country. About one-quarter goes on the basic information and training service that is central to the effective operation of the service. A further one-quarter goes on "field support" for groups of bureaux at area level. Between one-quarter and one-third goes on cash assistance for individual bureaux capital or operating costs.
It has been suggested that direct cash assistance for bureaux should be substantially increased. NACAB proposed that when it asked us last year to double its grants from £5 million to £10 million. It intended that such additional funding should be spent largely on the operating costs of individual bureaux. As the House is aware, a further increase in grant assistance on the scale which NACAB sought is simply not possible within current constraints on public expenditure. Quite apart from that, any substantial increase in central Government funding for bureaux running costs raises major problems of principle. In saying that, I have every sympathy with those who point out that the combined effect of the levels in local authority spending, and increasing demands on individual bureaux, is putting the service under serious pressure. In the past two or three months I have seen something of the conditions in which some bureaux are working. Some of the conditions are simply not acceptable.
One of the fundamental aspects is that if someone goes to a bureau to discuss very personal matters, he must be able to discuss them in an atmosphere of privacy, not within the hearing of people who are waiting. I am looking into the matter. I have made a point of visiting as many bureaux as possible even in the short time that I have held my present position. I have recently had discussions with the chairman of NACAB about whether the money that is provided centrally is being used in the most effective way and the dilemma, or principle, of whether more money should go locally or centrally. I have told her that I should be happy, if it would help, to examine that matter and any ideas that NACAB may advance about the more effective use of the money that we provide centrally.
Effectiveness is only partly a matter of money. Nevertheless, it is crucially important to ensure that taxpayers' money is used as effectively as possible. Effectiveness is also a matter of structure and organisation—both in the generalist advice service, such as the citizens advice bureaux, and also in the more specialised advice from other services.
Hon. Members touched on an important point. There is too much overlap between the albeit limited number of advice centres in one area. People are still confused about where they should go for particular types of help. As we 1183 all know, it is possible to be sent to several centres and not to end up with the advice that one seeks. I am examining that problem urgently. I shall discuss it again with NACAB.
In the next few days, I hope to visit the headquarters at Drury Lane to examine the work being done there, especially the literature that is distributed and the way in which it is set out. I shall visit more bureaux throughout the country before coming to any conclusions on the matter. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Battersea, South for raising the issue. The House has not had an opportunity to debate it for some time. I shall examine the constructive points that have been raised and discuss with NACAB whether changes are needed.