Citizens Advice Woking warn extra £50k won't plug quarter of a million funding gap as closure threat looms

Citizens Advice Woking provides free, confidential and independent help. Its volunteers receive training to guide people through problems and offer option to help make difficult decisions. It last year received £215,000, but this years government grant has been reduced to £30,000, to cover costs while the service finds new income streams and grants.

Meanwhile, the group had warned this would not be enough given the huge reduction in grants across the borough and the sheer number of groups in the same boat following Woking Borough Council’s effective bankruptcy.

Citizens Advice Woking (CAW) volunteers said the time between the end of council support and the results of its grant applications means it could be forced to disband.

Last week, Woking council had been given sign off to employ a hardship officer to help residents struggling with massive tax rises, cuts to vital social services, and the wider cost of living crisis.

However, in at attempt to save the service, the £50,000 for that role has now been redirected to Citizens Advice Woking for staffing as of last week. Even then, there are still huge concerns about its future – as it gets used to working with a quarter of government funding that received last year, volunteers claimed. CAW also received a grant from Woking council of £210,500 with £189,000 going towards the core service. The council also covered service charges on its Provincial House base; however this ends March 31.

Councillor Ann-Marie Barker, Leader of Woking Borough Council, said in a statement: “There is no doubt that Citizens Advice Woking (CAW) offers an invaluable service to local residents in need.

“However, grant funding for CAW was always provided on a discretionary basis and this is not a statutory requirement. The council can no longer do that as it must live within its means.

“Sadly the requirement to support vulnerable people is limited to statutory services required of the council.

“For Woking that relates only to housing and homelessness. We will continue to fund CAW’s court desk which supports those at risk of losing their home.

“We are proactively exploring all options available to support CAW to move to a new way of operating and secure future funding through alternative sources.”

Volunteers at Citezens Advice attended the Thursday, February 8, meeting to protest the cuts which were introduced as part of a wider council budget. It slashed more than £8m from services and costs, including confirmation that about 20 per cent of the local authority’s work force were to be made redundant.

Following the meeting they wrote an open letter to the council.

It read: “Very sadly, for the vulnerable of Woking, a majority vote in favour of the cuts was the result.

“We should add, very many of the borough councillors showed every sympathy to the issue, but didn’t seem able to present another way to resolve it.

“Woking Council immediately publicised how relieved they were to have achieved this “day to day, living within our means” budget.

“We truly believe that the real impact is still not understood.”

“We have seen large numbers being shared – of the excellent funding that has been secured for Citizens Advice Woking to continue its service. Many of our supporters are congratulating us on succeeding in our campaign to save our advice service!

“Here comes the but – we would love to continue our service, but the financial funding is not actually there for us to do so.

“The new numbers being quoted are certainly interesting and look good on paper, however the money is caught up in various ways.”

According to the letter, about half the money granted to CAW is for its office accommodation – which is described as a notional rent and service charge that goes back to the council as landlords to keep.

Just over a quarter is ring-fenced for projects that cannot be used for operational costs – and mostly from central Government, volunteers claim.

That leaves just 22 per cent of “new” funding. It is not yet clear if this will also be ring-fenced to perform additional duties, the letter stated.

They said a best case scenario of having all the “new” money available to deliver core activities would leave CAW’s operational funding at a quarter of last year’s amount.

It read: “Exactly what this means in terms of our service is still being determined but it is clear that it will, at a minimum, need to be reduced.

“While we volunteers are helping the management with more fundraising opportunities and remain hopeful that we can access some external grants, we expect that we will face stiff competition wherever we seek help.

“As volunteers at Citizens Advice, we will continue to express concern at the way the council is removing funding from Citizens Advice Woking – it’s a very short term view and we see no evidence that the proposed council efficiencies can be in place by April 1 to cope with increased demand.

“We will be very sad if Citizens Advice Woking has to redirect our vulnerable residents to the council, knowing that, through no fault of their own, the staff at the council offices are unable to help.”

The council has argued CAW must demonstrate how it will transform its way of working before any further help is offered – this is the same with other groups that have had their funding cut.

The borough leader, Councillor Ann-Marie Barker said the council would “like to assist CAW further but needs them to clearly demonstrate how our assistance will transform their way of working. “

Rumblings about funding cuts first surfaced when the bankrupt borough was forced to stop spending on non-essential services last year.

Citzens Advice Woking, based in Provincial House, Commercial Way, is open between 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday.

The service puts on outreach sessions at the Byfleet Methodist Church in Rectory Lane, every Wednesday from noon to 2.30pm and the Mascot Hub in Dartmouth Avenue, Sheerwater, every Thursday from 10am to 1pm.

The allocation of £30,000 Government UK Shared Prosperity Funding will support the transformation of the organisation and will be available immediately once approved by government.