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Advice Centres (Barnsley and Sheffield)

It is a pleasure to deliver my speech in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. Most people never need to seek advice, and I hope that that remains the case, but some people, often through no fault of their own, find themselves in difficulty, with creditors knocking on the door or, in the most extreme circumstances, their homes being taken away. Such people are often going through a terrible time. They might have lost a partner or a job, or they might find that they cannot work anymore, and it is at such times that the advice centre comes into its own. It can offer practical help by guiding people to a safe haven and helping them to rebuild their lives. My constituency is typical of many in this country, with parts in which deprivation levels are high and increasing worklessness and unemployment, which is not helped, it has to be said, by the cutting of public sector jobs. The constituency covers the north of Sheffield and the west of Barnsley, and it has three advice centres for an electorate of about 70,000. On the Sheffield side, the two advice centres, Chapel Green and Stocksbridge, are independent of Citizens Advice, and on the Barnsley side a citizens advice bureau covers most of the area. The centres' services are provided on very tight budgets, and the centres draw heavily on the contribution made by an army of well-trained and well-motivated volunteers—the original big society, even before it became a PR slogan. Even when the economy was in good health and employment levels were at record highs, advice centres played an important role in supporting individuals who found themselves struggling with the business of everyday survival, and demand for such support is now rising because of the present economic climate. Unemployment is rising, and inflation is running at 5.5% on the RPI measure, with the cost of everyday items, particularly food and petrol, increasing significantly. People are feeling the pinch, and those who have lost their jobs are likely to need significant levels of support if they are to succeed in protecting their families and getting back on their feet. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that as the Government spending cuts bite, personal indebtedness will increase by a massive £303 billion by 2015, meaning that average household debt will rise to £77,309—the previous projection was £66,291. To put it another way, household debt will rise to 170% of household income according to independent forecasts by a body set up by the Government themselves. One of the advice centres in my constituency has informed me that it has recently seen a 13% increase in the number of people seeking advice. In Barnsley, the citizens advice bureau has seen a massive 25% increase in the level of debt that it is being asked to advise on—the debt totalled almost £18 million last year. The Barnsley centre now receives 50 new debt-related inquiries a day, and debt accounts for 60% of its work. That is a frightening figure by anyone's standards, and even more so in Barnsley, which will suffer particularly badly because of the cuts. All three advice centres agree that the situation will get worse as the Government's austerity drive gathers pace in the coming months and years. This is not a time, therefore, to cut funding to advice centres, but that is exactly what is happening, never mind that the financial inclusion fund has been reprieved. I acknowledge the fact that the Government have done that, for the time being, but anyone familiar with the funding regimes that apply to advice centres knows that the centres typically sustain themselves from a number of sources. Stocksbridge advice centre is isolated in a steel-producing community seven miles from the next nearest advice centre, and it has seen its £84,000 budget reduced to £29,000 for the financial year that is just starting, thanks to a number of decisions made by the Government. That is a massive cut by anyone's standards. The centre's biggest loss is the £42,000 it used to get from Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency for Yorkshire and the Humber that the coalition Government have abolished. The centre has also been told by the Lib-Dem Sheffield city council that it will receive funding for only six months of the coming year, because the council is required to save £80 million in one year thanks to reductions in its Government grant, with further amounts to be cut from its budget in future years, of course. There is, therefore, only six months' guaranteed income from the council, after which the centre will have to bid for further funding for the rest of the year and beyond. The centre serves not only the steel town from which it takes its name, but a large rural area that extends well into the Peak District and to the wonderful market town of Penistone in Barnsley. The consequences of the reductions are that the number of paid staff will reduce from 2.6 to 0.9 full-time equivalents and the service provided will be put at risk, despite the eight doughty volunteers who give their time for free, week in and week out. The centre's statistics clearly demonstrate its worth. Client gains in welfare benefits were in excess of £586,000 for the past year, which roughly equates to a £6 gain for every £1 spent by the centre. That does not include the amount of debt dealt with, which by October 2010 was well in excess of £500,000. In the past year, the centre also undertook 134 home visits; every MP knows that home visits are an essential part of any advice service, and we occasionally have to do them ourselves, visiting disabled people, for example, or the parents of children with special needs. The advice centre also represented 34 clients at social security tribunals. It is worth pointing out that the centre covers a huge geographical area to the north of Sheffield, including parts of western Barnsley and, as I have said, the next nearest advice centre is more than seven miles away, in Hillsborough, in the urban part of Sheffield. The Hillsborough centre is already working at full capacity, and could not take on the extra workload if Stocksbridge ceased to exist—it would be physically and financially impossible. A huge area would, therefore, be left without advice cover and, given that a large part of it is rural and rather isolated—we are talking about the Peak District national park in its north-eastern reaches—such a possibility is rather worrying, to say the least. The very idea that such a large area could be left without the provision is of huge concern to my constituents. In the eastern part of my constituency, the local independent advice centre, Chapel Green, relies entirely on a grant from Sheffield city council for its survival. Not only has that grant been cut by 11%, but the funding received is for only six months, which is the Lib-Dem council's policy, and the centre has been told that it will then have to compete for a share of any possible further funding. The centre covers not only the north-east of the city, but also part of the massive Parson Cross estate, the levels of deprivation of which are well known. The centre already runs on the work of volunteers and can only pay for a part-time manager, who is a very effective and dedicated individual. I run my surgeries from the Chapel Green advice centre on the fourth Saturday of every month, and the manager turns out every single time to welcome my constituents and to ensure that they are looked after while they wait to see me. That is the level of dedication that he shows in his work. He has been running the centre on a shoestring for years, but the financial situation is now deteriorating very rapidly, and if the centre is unsuccessful in gaining further funding, it will no doubt face closure. Adequate debt advice will become unavailable to much of the population in north Sheffield, which involves about 40,000 people. The bit of Parson Cross covered by the advice centre has serious levels of deprivation. It was once part of Sheffield, Brightside, one of the most deprived constituencies in the north of England. The centre there secured £691,373.29 in unclaimed benefits for its clients during the financial year just closed. That is nearly £750,000 pumped into the local economy, with all the benefits accruing from that. This point must be read into this debate: advice centres secure moneys due to local people, which has a knock-on effect on the local economy and its shops and businesses at a time when those businesses need to be stimulated for their long-term survival. The same centre reports that queries relating to debt increased by 21% over the past year, with telephone queries up by 6%. In Barnsley, the local Labour council has been able to maintain the CAB's funding of £195,000 for another year. I applaud Councillor Stephen Houghton for making the brave decision not to cut that funding in the face of a £26 million reduction in the moneys available to spend on services. He has recognised that the financial plight of many people living in his borough must be a top priority in terms of local services delivered. However, although the retention of the financial inclusion fund is also helpful, the future of Barnsley CAB is still uncertain, and although the grant level is being maintained, it is still being cut in real terms when inflation is taken into consideration. The centre covers not only a large part of the west of my constituency but the rest of the borough of Barnsley, which features in any index of deprivation. If there is any borough in England that needs support even now, it is Barnsley. It has some of the highest levels of people on incapacity benefit in England, a lot of whom have long-term illness resulting from their work in the mining industry. People in Barnsley need support. In these difficult times, the Government must thoroughly reconsider the cumulative impact of their policies on advice centres. The future of those centres is at risk not only from the cuts that almost all of them face from local authorities but from their loss of funding from various other sources. Although the big society is a great slogan, it still needs funding. Volunteers are great and do a valuable job, but they need support and training, which takes money, and advice centres ultimately need paid professional input to work. The Government must understand that if we are really all in this together, advice centres need to be sustained. They provide critical individual support to tackle difficult and entrenched problems relating to issues such as debt, disability and housing. The Government must also understand that it would be damaging to force through a centralised rationalisation of advice centre services by contracting out the work to call centres. When people are in trouble, they need the personalised and sensitive approach that they get from face-to-face service. As MPs, we know that most of our constituents are happy for us to deal with their problems after a quick e-mail or phone call, but some constituents have problems that are so complex and entrenched that they must meet us face to face at our surgeries in order to explain them so that we can work out what needs to be done. The same applies to advice centres, which need to be able to offer a face-to-face service. The challenge is clear. Are we all in this together? If so, and if we believe in the big society, I ask the Government not to endanger an increasingly vital service that is valued by our communities.