The stories our clients tell us provide a unique insight into the problems faced by people in the UK. With over two million clients seen by Citizen’s Advice Bureaux each year this evidence is hard to ignore.
We speak up about the policies and services that cause people problems.
You can get involved by supporting our campaigns and helping us change things for the better.
The experience of Citizens Advice Bureax gives us a unique, fresh insight into the problems faced by people in the UK.
Citizens Advice collects evidence of client’s problems and uses this to campaign for changes in national and local policies and services. We have a key role in speaking up for clients raising issues brought into local offices, contributing to public debate and informing legislation. Our policy and campaign work covers a huge range of issues including consumer, debt, housing, benefits, immigration, employment, legal matters and health. We work with policymakers, regulators, MPs, assembly members and service providers.
Everyone is affected by rules and principles which shape the services and benefits we all rely on. These may include regulations, codes of practice, legislation, guidelines and policies of service providers; they may be national, regional or local. All social policy work undertaken is rooted in the experiences of real people who are adversely affected by these policies; social policy is about campaigning to bring about changes to make the rules (and their implementation) fairer for all.
Citizens Advice has built a strong reputation for independent analysis and has worked with government, companies, regulators, trade associations and consumer groups to secure change for those who are adversely affected by unfair policies.
It is recognised that the best way to tackle any problem is to treat the cause, not just the symptoms. This is what social policy aims to do. We cannot see everyone who needs help individually and many people do not access our services, for various reasons. However, we can – and do – reach out and help people beyond our core service users through our social policy work, by bringing about changes that reduce unfairness.
