Advice charity in need of cash

From the archive, first published Tuesday 24th Apr 2007.

A CHARITY that helps people resolve their money and legal problems is struggling to find all the cash necessary to carry out its important work.

There is currently just one part-time advisor and one part-time administrator at the Braintree, Witham and Halstead Citizens' Advice Bureau (CAB), due to funding problems.

Manager Paul Hart said: "We had two part-time advisors but one left. When we looked at the funding, we couldn't recruit. This year, 2007/8, we intend to take up a second advisor to get back to where we were, funding permitting."

He is now putting together funding bids, including one for lottery cash, because the CAB is only confident of getting £25,000 of the £40,000 it has budgeted to run the service.

"One of the problems for us in the Braintree district is we are regarded as a relatively affluent area. We are but there are pockets of deprivation, but they average out," said Mr Hart.

The CAB is having to concentrate its resources on debt work, rather than general advice, as more and more people seek financial help.

It dealt with 268 cases during the last year - 40 per cent from Witham - and clients had a total debt of £4.1million.

Around 43 per cent of these debts were racked up on credit cards.

Mr Hart said: "Many clients have multiple debts. It is not uncommon to encounter clients that owe £40,000 or more. That's excluding mortgage owings."

He said where possible, the CAB refers clients to the Holdfast Credit Union or to specialist agencies that consolidate debts.

But he added: "There has been a huge growth in the amount of petitions for bankruptcy because really for most of these people that is the only route open to them to escape the crippling debt."