This research project undertook an in depth look at how expert advisory Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) interventions show savings, not just on benefits, but also health, police and educational services, and where households have been ‘stabilised’ both financially and emotionally.

The work will build upon the study carried out by Peter Ambrose and Julia Stone of the Health and Social Policy Research Centre (HSPRC), University of Brighton in 2003. This found that advisory interventions by Brighton and Hove CAB generated substantial additional income for the local economy and produced savings on a number of public sector budgets (see reports at bottom of this page).

This project aimed to show how Citizen Advice Bureau interventions produce cost savings to statutory funded services (such as , health etc). It also intended to show the positive impact of such interventions on the development, self esteem and confidence of CAB clients thus improving their future life chances. It was a partnership between University of Brighton’s Health and Social Policy Research Centre and Littlehampton CAB.

The CAB had already been able to do a limited amount of research to show funders the amount of the saving made to the community by being able to support and help clients with debt problems. They have shown that help in the early stages has often meant that what would have been a catastrophic problem has been managed and eventually solved. The enormous value of early interventions in serious debt situations was clearly shown in an earlier HSPRC project (see Peter Ambrose and Liz Cunningham, The Ever Increasing Circle, HSPRC, 2004).

Project partners

Littlehampton Citizens Advice Bureau

Littlehampton & District Citizens Advice Bureau provides free, confidential, impartial and independent advice and information on a wide range of subjects. Their areas of work include debt worries, benefit claims, housing and employment problems, queries about consumer tax and utilities issues. They can also advise on legal matters, answer questions about immigration and have lots of experience on relationship, family and personal matters too. They also have expertise in community care issues.

Former HSPRC - now SSPARC at the University of Brighton

In order to reflect the breadth of the centre's research interests they changed the name from Health and Social Policy Research Centre (HSPRC) to the Social Science Policy and Research Centre: SSPARC.The SSPARC research still includes health and social policy but now also encompasses criminology, sociology, psychology, psychosocial studies, public policy and politics. The centre runs professional courses in social work, counselling and psychotherapy, and applied interests in other areas of social practice such as work with substance misusers and community development.

Resources

Stone, Julia and Ambrose, Peter (2003) Eleven Plus to One, HSPRC - Executive Summary