Our Aims and Principles

The Citizens Advice service provides free, independent, confidential and impartial advice to everyone on their rights and responsibilities. It values diversity, promotes equality and challenges discrimination.
The service aims:
to provide the advice people need for the problems they face
to improve the policies and practices that affect people's lives.
Free – No-one has to pay for any part of the service we provide.
Independent – We will always act in the interests of our clients, without influence from any outside bodies.
Confidential – We will not pass on anything a client tells us or even the fact they have visited us without their permission.
Impartial – We do not judge our clients or make assumptions about them. Our service is open to everyone and we treat everyone equally.
Putting these principles into action enables us to provide a vital service to the millions of people who turn to us for help each year.

What do Citizens Advice Bureaux do?

Give Advice

Provide advice

The Citizens Advice service offers information and advice through face-to-face, phone and email services, and online via Adviceguide.org.uk. Between them, Citizens Advice Bureaux make advice available from over 3,500 locations in England and Wales including high streets, community centres, doctors’ surgeries, courts and prisons.

During 2010/11 the service helped 2.1 million people with 7.1 million problems relating to issues including debt, benefits, employment, housing and immigration. Advisers help clients to fill our forms, write letters, negotiate with creditors, and can even represent them at court or tribunal. Our clients and volunteers come from all walks of life. We are committed to providing an independent advice services and volunteering opportunities to the whole community.

Bureaux act as a one-stop-shop for clients. Advisers provide up to date advice and information using our unique electronic information system, link clients up with other services and agencies, help write letters and complete forms, negotiate with creditors, make telephone calls on clients’ behalf and represent them at tribunals.

The problems we are most often asked about concern employment, managing debt, housing, relationships and benefits but we will help people who come to us with any enquiry including consumer rights, legal matters and immigration.

Advisers don’t tell clients what to do but explain their options and the possible outcomes of different courses of action. Clients are encouraged to make their own decisions and act on their own behalf. We enable clients to manage their own problems by focusing on their needs as individuals.

Campaign for changes in policies and services

We’re not just here for times of crisis – we also use clients’ stories anonymously to campaign for policy changes that benefit the population as a whole.

The sheer number of clients we see each year means that if there is a recurring injustice out there, it is inevitably being played out in our interview rooms and recorded on our database of client evidence. This database is analysed by the national policy team, who are then able to bring problem areas to the attention of those who are – often inadvertently – causing them.

National Campaigning

We use this evidence to highlight the effects that policies have on real people in the real world and to suggest where improvements can be made to the policies and services of national and local government and businesses. We aim to stop problems at their source, using the direct experience of the communities that bureaux serve. Each bureau sends information about the problems brought to them (but not about their clients) to the national Citizens Advice organisation. Evidence is collated to help social policy officers identify national trends. The CAB can then present evidence to policy makers by writing reports and submissions and participating in consultations to improve policies.

Local/Regional Campaigning

With local or regional issues, bureaux may act individually or join forces with other bureaux and outside agencies, using their client evidence to lobby MPs, Assembly Members (AMs), councillors, local authorities and others as well as presenting their findings in the media.

Turning Evidence into Action

The CAB Service is respected for its impartiality and independent analysis and is listened to at all levels of government. Councillors, MPs, AMs and Ministers all consult the CAB Service on a wide range of issues. This enables us to effectively campaign for social justice and get laws and policies changed for the better.
We have recently campaigned on issues as diverse as:

Bailiffs practices

Helping payday lenders play fair

Oil clubs

Cold calling

Protection for car park users

PPI

You can help us make life better for everyone.