https://www.citizensadvicenorthumberland.org.uk/
"Nearly 5 million people are in a negative budget, stuck in the red, building up debt just to get by. A further 2.35 million are living on empty - only escaping a negative budget by cutting their essential spending back to unsafe levels, just to keep their heads above water. They’re breaking even, but only by going hungry, sitting in cold and damp homes, or not getting around as much as they once did.
In Northumberland there are 24,700 people in negative budget. This helps explain why the demand for all our advice services continues to reach record levels. We are most concerned at the numbers of clients who don’t reach us until their debt problems are serious and having a marked effect on their health and wellbeing. To address this trend, we have created an advice service that aims to engage with potential clients in familiar surroundings, picking-up on signs of impending trouble earlier and intervening before things get out of control. This is our Community Advice Service. Our project sees us work with existing, trusted staff already present in host organisations and known to clients – school administrators, patient support workers, housing officers and others, who we term Community Assessors. We provide them with a comprehensive but succinct training package that sees them become upskilled to identify need and signpost and/or refer into the specialist services Citizens Advice Northumberland provide across the county.
Across the county during 2023 we:
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Provided advice to 29,000 people
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Assisted with 60,000 different issues
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Our advisors have helped clients gain over £6.4m in income and have debts re-scheduled or written off amounting to £1m.
Assisting clients with issues concerning benefits and tax credits, Universal Credit, charitable support and food banks, consumer goods and services and debt form the largest part of our support. Last year we have carried out more debt assessments than ever before and dealt with more cases of fuel debts as the cost of energy remained a major issue for many households."