This week I joined many of our CAB's staff, volunteers and trustees at their AGM where we heard just how busy the CAB service is now, and what the future holds for local people. Hounslow's CAB, along with all CAB's is going through an unprecedented growth in "business". Ours is one of the few CAB's that has seen its Council grant increase to meet the challenge, but even so it struggles to keep on top of the problems.
Our 3 bureau at Chiswick Hounslow and Feltham saw over 8000 new clients last year, with 24,000 queries. The top 3 presenting issues are Benefits & Tax Credits 31%, Debt (25%) followed by Housing (11%). However many people have more than one interrelated problem they are seeking to solve. On top of that, an increasing number of clients have mental or physical disabilities, an/or stoical and language isolation.
Many common themes come up again and again in the casework including DWP repeatedly making wrong assessments or wrongly applying the law, and people with mental health problems struggling to manage finances and claim appropriate benefits, even contemplating suicide as the only way out of their debt problems.
The AGM heard from Christie Silk, of the CAB National office, explaining how the further changes to the Welfare Benefits system will mean two million people in this country will be worse off. The people with most to fear are severely disabled people living alone, families with high childcare costs, and lone parents with disabled children (a very high proportion of disabled children live with a lone parent).
The AGM was a meeting of mixed emotions for me: anger at what the Government policies are doing to low paid and disabled people in this country, admiration for the work of the CAB staff and volunteers, and determination to do what I can to ensure the limited Council resources are used in the best way to reduce the impact on residents of Hounslow.
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