Question:
There is anxiety among local charities and residents about Wokingham Borough Council's plan to stop funding the One Front Door service this summer. The funding pays for Citizens Advice Bureau Wokingham staff and services to help residents who find themselves in financial difficulty. The service costs £90,000 a year to run and the Council ringfenced £250,000 a year ago to support financial hardship projects, of which not a penny is planned to help continue One Front Door. With the Administration not supporting this service who will be helping these struggling residents?
Minutes:
There is anxiety among local charities and residents about Wokingham Borough Council's plan to stop funding the One Front Door service this summer. The funding pays for Citizens Advice Bureau Wokingham staff and services to help residents who find themselves in financial difficulty. The service costs £90,000 a year to run and the Council ringfenced £250,000 a year ago to support financial hardship projects, of which not a penny is planned to help continue One Front Door. With the Administration not supporting this service who will be helping these struggling residents?
Answer
Wokingham Borough Council is absolutely committed to ensuring our residents have sources of help and support and the Citizens Advice will continue to be an important part of this. We are still providing funding so that they can support residents on issues including benefits, debt, employment, and housing, as well as family and legal issues.
One Front Door was set up to provide a triage service to meet the huge additional surge in calls for help during the Covid pandemic. It has provided a valuable service to residents, and this Executive extended funding into 2024 because of the Cost of Living Crisis.
It was created as a temporary enhancement to the normal core Citizens Advice service. You yourself, Laura, in your previous role as Executive Member for Anti Poverty, signed off the strategic direction for One Front Door to transition to a longer term, sustainable arrangement. I am not clear why you now oppose this.
The £250,000 Hardship Fund is a Liberal Democrat initiative. It is earmarked for a number of projects which will provide longer term benefits to our residents by fighting the root causes of poverty. This includes boosting access to a full education through poverty proofing the school day, and by funding a Community Pantry which will help residents on low incomes access affordable healthy food.
You were included, Laura, in the cross-party consultation on the use of this money and you spoke in this Chamber opposing its use to support residents in need.
This Executive will continue to support the Citizens Advice service, will provide other sources of help and advice for our residents, and will work to fight the root causes of poverty.
One Front Door was funded by central government grants which the Conservative Government has unfortunately ended. As a financially responsible Executive we have to move forward with sustainable ways to support residents.
We are working as a council, with the Citizens Advice and with other members of the Voluntary and Community Sector to achieve this. This includes improving our processes for signposting and referrals, and a partnership with the BOOM credit union to support residents with finances.
Supplementary Question:
I think you will agree that we had hoped that demand would have fallen for the service after Covid, after cost of living, and unfortunately the demand is just at the same level. It is not decreasing. So, with the service closing with it being embedded in local charities across this Borough more vulnerable people will not get the support that they need. So, I do hope that you will go away and seriously have a good look at this to help prevent disaster, especially as much of the £250,000 still has not been spent. I did not speak against helping people in need, that is a matter of record.
My question is will you let charities know before the end of this month, what is going to replace One Front Door? I do not mean the name of it, how is it going to work, nuts and bolts, what is the infrastructure, that at the moment they do not know, and they are very worried about people falling through the cracks?
Supplementary Answer:
Thank you for your question, Laura. I agree with you that it is very sad the number of people who are in desperate need, and continue to be at a very high level, but due to extreme economic turbulence that we are seeing in this country. The Officers are talking to the Hardship Alliance and to the Citizens Advice Bureau. They are going through the process of transitioning the service, and they will keep them fully informed. I need to stress that Citizens Advice Wokingham is not stopping the services that they provide in this area. What will be ending in the summer is the temporary triage service, so all of the core services are going to continue – the welfare benefits, the money and debt, the employment, the housing, the advice in all of these areas, will be continuing.
I need to stress as well that Citizens Advice is just one way that residents can get help with the cost of living support. The Council has an extensive cost of living support hub and directory, both were refreshed and relaunched in autumn 2022, and these are helping residents get immediate online help and support. Just to give an example of how successful this is, there have been more than 78,000 visits to the Council’s cost of living help website. One in four of every of those visits, that is 18,000 in total, ends in a successful signpost to support. This is thanks to a campaign to raise awareness of this. We have had 42 partner campaigns, and the site has been added to 700 referral points with local partners. We have put leaflets through doors for residents to signpost them to help. There has been ongoing communications and campaigning, online adverts, social media posts, emails to those most likely to be affected, there have been cost of living surveys.