Agenda item

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

            Councillors Crockett and John West declared interests in the subject matter of the following article by virtue of their positions on the Citizens’ Advice Bureau Board of Directors.  Neither Councillor felt it was necessary to withdraw from the meeting throughout discussion of the matter.

With reference to article 2 of the minute of its previous meeting, the Committee had before it a report by the Director of Housing and Environment which provided information on the funding provided by the Council to Aberdeen Citizens’ Advice Bureau (CAB) and information regarding the progress of a Service Level Agreement between both parties, as requested at the aforementioned meeting.  It was noted that a replacement report had been circulated prior to the meeting.

At the previous meeting of this Committee, it had been agreed to make savings through both the merger of the Council’s debt advice team with the Council’s welfare rights team, and retain £70,000 of Scottish Government funding for the Debt Advice Scheme allocation currently provided to Aberdeen Citizens’ Advice Bureau, pending the organisation’s employment of a registered Debt Advice Scheme approved money adviser.  Since this time, officers had since been advised that there had never been any agreement in writing between the Council and the CAB that the CAB should appoint a Debt Advice Scheme approved money adviser, and that it was not the understanding of the CAB that there was any such requirement.  Since this issue had been highlighted, the CAB had taken immediate steps to ensure the employment of one Debt Advice Scheme approved money adviser, and had another officer working towards this accreditation.

The report outlined that the CAB were concerned that the information presented at the previous meeting had inferred that the money provided to them was being utilised inappropriately.  Officers advised that this was categorically not the case and that they now recognised that there were other, equally valid forms of complex advice and assistance outwith the Debt Advice Scheme, and that funding provided to the CAB for money advice was being utilised for these purposes.

The report reminded members that all funding for the provision of debt counselling and money advice in Aberdeen was shared between the Council and the CAB.  The Council received an allocation of £151,000 for Enhanced Debt Advice in the GAE funding from the Scottish Government and this money was not ringfenced.  The most recent increase in the funding in 2005 was to enable each authority to have at least one additional approved money adviser for the Debt Arrangement Scheme.  The report continued that Council funding for debt counselling and money advice was further split between the Trading Standards Service’s debt counselling and money advice team and the CAB.  The CAB received two different steams of funding from the Council:-  (1)  approximately £70,000 from the Trading Standards Service for Enhanced Money Advice (which it uses for this purpose); and (2)  approximately £263,000 from the Common Good Fund, of which it used a small percentage of this on basic level money advice provided by volunteers with the support of paid staff as appropriate.  Half of the £263,000 of Common Good Funding was allocated to property costs, rent, heating and lighting, telephones, office equipment, and computers; and the balance was allocated for (1)  the employment of the Manager and Assistant Manager, both of whom in addition to their management functions also had specialist roles in relation to immigration and welfare rights; (2)  a Volunteer Support Worker; (3)  an Employment Worker;
(4)  computer support; and (5)  administrative staff.  The CAB dealt with all its own HR, caretaking, maintenance and accountancy requirements.

The report provided a breakdown of expenditure for 2009/10 for the CAB in which it was detailed that the CAB received funding of £120,000 from the Fairer Scotland Fund in order to deliver a community outreach service for money advice and income maximisation.  This money was reserved for work with clients from specific regeneration areas of the city and could not be used for the CAB’s mainstream money advice.  The report continued that officers now accepted that although the current funding to the CAB for this financial year was £333,000, only £70,000 was used to fund enhanced money advice cases, and that lower level money advice was dealt with by volunteers.

The report then provided a breakdown of budget for debt advice 2009/10 by the Council and a comparison between the CAB and the Council’s debt advice services.  Appendix A to the report provided a detailed explanation as to why the CAB believed that any cut in funding would severely curtail their ability to provide a debt advice service.

The report continued that savings of £82,000 projected from a merger of the debt advice team and the welfare rights team had already been agreed (and outlined within appendix B).  The report intimated that it was difficult to see how further savings could be made without the loss of front line debt counsellor posts, which would impact not only on clients but also on the CAB as Aberdeen’s only major alternative provider of debt and money advice services.

In relation to the position of the outstanding Service Level Agreement between the Council and the CAB, the report advised that the Committee had been misinformed at the previous meeting regarding the position between the two parties, and that the CAB were actually awaiting further developments from the Council and had returned a draft Service Level Agreement to officers.  The opportunity was taken at this point in the report to apologise to the CAB for implying that they had caused the delay with regards to the Agreement.

It was proposed that the Service Level Agreement would cover all of the funding streams from the Council to the CAB and would clearly define expected outputs. Officers had a preliminary and positive discussion with representatives of the CAB on this matter, and it was intended that much more detailed discussions would take place once a decision on the future of debt advice funding was reached, with a view to establishing a Service Level Agreement as a matter of urgency.

The report continued that owing to the fact that the CAB now had one approved Debt Advice Scheme money advisor and another member of staff working towards this accreditation, it was now capable of providing a full range of money advice services.  It was clear that the CAB and the Council’s debt advice team provided complementary money advice services to clients, and that demand for these services was continuing to increase, most likely fuelled by the current economic situation.

The report proposed as a way forward, that officers engage with the CAB and other stakeholders such as the National Debt Line, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, and the Debt Advice Foundation (national charitable organisations which provide free basic money advice services) to discuss options for debt advice service delivery and determine how existing funding for debt services, minus the £70,000 saving which required to be made, could be used to maximum benefit for clients.  It was suggested that a report be submitted to the next meeting of this Committee which would contain recommendations on the future funding of money advice services and how the savings could be made.

The Director of Housing and Environment took this opportunity to formally apologise to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau for the misleading information that had been presented at the last meeting of this Committee and admitted that the debate should not have been polarised around the Debt Advice Scheme, as a range of complex advice was being provided by the CAB that was not necessarily associated with this Scheme.

The Convener expressed his unhappiness at the situation and made a full apology to Zara Strange (Manager of the CAB, Aberdeen) and the CAB Board of Directors for the situation that had occurred at the last meeting, on behalf of the Council and this Committee.

At this juncture, the Committee agreed to suspend Standing Order 22(2) in order for the Committee to be able to revisit, in part, the decision taken at the previous meeting, to withhold the full amount of the £70,000 of funding previously allocated to the CAB.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)         to note that the report and information presented at the previous meeting of this Committee contained a number of inaccuracies regarding (1)  funding from the Council and how appropriately it was being utilised by the CAB;
(2) the level of debt advice the CAB were qualified to provide; (3)  the cost effectiveness of the CAB’s provision; and (4)  the position regarding a Service Level Agreement;

(ii)        to note that the Director of Housing and Environment apologised unreservedly for the inaccurate information provided at the previous meeting;

(iii)       to note the information on funding streams from the Council to the CAB as detailed within the report;

 (iv)      to instruct officers to consider how savings of £70,000 could be made in the provision of debt advice from the overall funding currently allocated to the Trading Standards service for this function, with the minimum impact on service users, and for this to be reported back at the next meeting on 6 May, 2010;

(v)        to instruct officers to engage in discussions with the CAB to establish a Service Level Agreement as a matter of urgency, with all future funding being associated with this;

(vi)       to approve a payment of £7,000 as a transition amount in funding from the Trading Standards budget to the CAB, until a decision on future funding is made on 6 May, 2010, this being a pro rata sum based on the existing funding of £70,000 per annum; and

(vii)      to instruct a report back to each meeting of this Committee on all matters detailed within the report and in particular until a Service Level Agreement is in place between the Council and the CAB.