§ Mr. ColmanTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the annual costs to public funds were of(a) Citizens Advice Bureaux and (b) money advice centres, in relation to individuals in debt in (i) England 735W and Wales and (ii) the UK in each year since 1997; what proportion of these costs relate to (A) consumer credit and finance and (B) creditor organisations licensed under the Consumer Credit Act 1974. [86974]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonIndividual Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx) are not funded by Central Government. Each local CAB is a separate independent charity funded usually by local authorities, charitable trusts etc.
DTI funds both the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (NACAB) and Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS). NACAB and CAS provide both focus and support for the work of the CAB Service in England, Wales and Scotland. NACAB and CAS also provides training services and IT support to CABx, and is responsible for setting the standards of membership for the service. DTI expects to provide NACAB with grant-in-aid funding of £17.1 million, and CAS with grant-in-aid funding of 2.8 million in this financial year.
In addition, 14.55 million is paid for money advice to individuals in debt in the UK.
DTI (jointly with Treasury, Scottish Executive and the Lord Chancellor's Department) provide £1.15 million to fund the National Debtline Pilot. Between 1 March and 10 December 2002, it has helped 18,403 clients. Of these, 90.9 per cent. of calls were from England and Wales, with the remainder being from Scotland and Northern Ireland;The Legal Services Commission (LSC) spent £9.9 million in 2001–02 on payments to not-for-profit organisations providing money advice in England and Wales; andThe Scottish Executive are supplying £3 million per annum to provision front line specialist money advice across Scotland. They are also providing an additional £500,000 per annum for provision of central support for the sector (i.e. training/secondary advice/common standards etc).Due to the way in which the figures are collected, it is impossible to give a meaningful breakdown of what proportion of funding is used in relation to consumer credit and finance, and creditor organisations licensed under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.