OUR SERVICES ARE FREE, INDEPENDENT AND CONFIDENTIAL
Our Purpose
We are supporting people to resolve their advice problems and change their lives for the better. We do this on a free, confidential and impartial basis by:
Providing advice and information services to support people in resolving the problems they face
Supporting the improvement of policies and practices that affect people’s lives both locally and nationally
Our Values
Clients and Beneficiaries first
We work for the public and place the interests of our clients and communities at the heart of our high quality advice, information and support.
We collaborate with other organisations and partners for the benefit of our clients.
Professionalism
Working together as a team we take pride in doing things properly, in making a real difference.
Our staff, volunteers and trustees act with integrity.
We support our team to achieve the best for clients and beneficiaries.
Compassion
We believe everyone should have access to social justice.
We value diversity, challenge discrimination and create a culture where all can flourish.
How do we do this?
By delivering the highest quality advice and support across our range of services
By using technology to enable multi-channel access and to support as many clients as we can in the way that best meets their needs
By ensuring our services are accessible by:
Prioritising face-to-face support for those who most need it
Finding other means to help vulnerable clients where that would be more effective
By investing in quality training and supervision to make the most of our exceptional staff and volunteers
By building the long-term success of the charity by prioritising financial sustainability and by attracting more investment from our communities
National Outcomes and Impact Research 2020: Results
National Outcome and Impact Research (NOIR) involved conducting follow-up research with just over 4,000 people who came to us for help between September and December 2020. This research helps us understand how well our services continue to support people, and where we can improve. It also provides important insight into the effect the pandemic has had on our service and those who use it.
The research looked at three key objectives:
- People’s experiences of our services and how they accessed support. We also explored how the pandemic affected people’s problems, and how this changed their user journey.
- Their situations and needs
- Whether we helped people find a way forward, and how our advice improved other aspects of their lives
The summary of the results can be found here: National Citizens Advice National Outcome & Impact Research – 2020.
Advice Based on Evidence
While pursuing benefits appeals and chasing down unjust money claims, our actions can be assessed through the Treasury-recognised econometric model within Citizens Advice.
In other cases, satisfaction is measured by the determining factors of the issues i.e. a home is retained, a debt managed, an employment issue resolved.
For every £1 invested in our services we generated:
£4.20: Savings to government and public services (fiscal benefits)Embrace joint working and collaboration
By helping to stop problems occurring or escalating, we reduce the need for public services (health, housing, out of work benefits)
£25.56: Wider economic and social benefits (public value)
By supporting and helping to solve residents’ problems improves lives and this means better well-being, participation and productivity for residents, communities and the boroughs we serve
£16.59: Financial value to the people we help
Through our services and support we can increase peoples’ income, help write off debt, take up benefits and resolve consumer issues
Lambeth Client Satisfaction Survey
During the year, we separately surveyed our Lambeth clients to evaluate the longer term impact of our advice and support. Clients reported that following our advice and support:
81% had a better understanding of the issues/challenges they were facing
92% reported their confidence had improved to encourage them to take further action or to seek additional support if required”
92% were concerned about debt or financial challenges and were able to better manage finances/household budgets
95% said our advice and support were key to helping them improve their overall well being.