South Wales Evening Post - 27 October 2005
Swansea Citizens' Advice Bureau is at breaking point and facing the prospect of closure, it has emerged. Bosses say spiralling costs and years of council under-funding are putting the service it provides to the people of the city in danger.
The stark warning has come from CAB bosses who say the current situation cannot be allowed to continue.With a 40 per cent hike in rent, increasing staff costs and funding difficulties that have already resulted in service cuts and redundancies, there are genuine fears that only more funding will safeguard services.
Jackie Preston, who has managed the city's CAB for 13 years, said crisis time had arrived
."The situation is extremely serious," she said today. "We've had to turn people away because we just don't have the advisers.
"It's heartbreaking because all we want to do here is help and people come to us thinking that we will be able to do something for them.
"Finances are incredibly tight. I don't know how much longer we can carry on like this.
"We used to deal with more than 200 people a week but we have had to cut down our opening hours through lack of staff and other resources. We need more money - it's as simple as that."
The bureau's three full-time staff, six part-timers and 42 volunteers have to deal with a variety of problems covering areas like discrimination, relationship breakdowns, tenancy agreements and health and work dismissals.
But their office is now only open for a total of 10 hours a week due to lack of money - not demand.
The warning comes just weeks after CAB Cymru revealed the city's operation was among the worst funded in Wales.CAB officials are now pinning their hopes on a November 14 meeting with council cabinet member for finance John Newbury.
Swansea CAB trustee board chairman Bill Arnold said: "We are meeting Councillor Newbury very soon to sort out next year's funding."
Earlier this month the branch expressed its distress at the increase in numbers visiting the office because of benefit problems.
Councillor Rene Kinzett, who chairs the council's finance cabinet advisory committee and is a trustee of CAB Swansea, said today: "I hope that the forthcoming meeting between the council's finance chiefs and the local Citizens' Advice Bureau will agree on a way forward to solve the current problems of funding CAB services in Swansea.
"The council and the CAB need to be assured that any future funding arrangements are fair, transparent and offer good value for quality services to local people."
A council spokesman added: "We have been in contact with the CAB and planning to meet next month."
