Citizens Advice Exeter is at risk of closure following Exeter City Council cuts to its funding. The charity has launched a fundraising campaign, the first in its 23-year history, to enable it to continue offering free advice to local residents in need.
The charity says it helped more than 6,000 people and dealt with over 20,000 different issues including debt, housing and employment problems in 2023-24 alone.
It also says that it saved £1.6 million in government and public service provision costs last year while generating £12 million in wider economic and social benefits.
However it has announced service reductions that will mean that the number of people it can help will fall by a third from next month because the funding cuts are forcing it to reduce staffing levels.
While the majority of its workforce is volunteers, which it says donated time worth more than £600,000 last year, they must be trained and supervised by charity employees.
The charity says that in order to prioritise its core general advice service it will have to make significant reductions in other specialist services, and that its future is at risk unless new sources of funding can be found.
Citizens Advice Exeter 2023-24 impact report
Citizens Advice Exeter chief executive Sue Julyan said: “We are currently using our reserves to continue providing free and impartial advice services to our community; however, this is not sustainable.”
She added: “We have been working hard to reduce our costs, seek alternative sources of funding and review our service model.”
“We are appealing for our community’s help to secure the future of our services, which make a huge difference to the financial and mental wellbeing of many people in Exeter.”
For the past four years the charity has received £200,000 per annum from the city council to deliver an information advice and advocacy contract that formed the foundation of its services, covering around a third of the charity’s total running costs each year.
However in February the council confirmed its plans to cut the Citizens Advice Exeter budget in favour of the Wellbeing Exeter social prescribing project, to which it allocated a total of up to £1.1 million.
Its decision followed the withdrawal of Devon County Council Wellbeing Exeter funding.
The county council had contributed £395,000 to Wellbeing Exeter’s annual running costs from 2018 to 2022, then reduced the funding to £270,000 before removing it completely.
The city council had previously contributed £260,000 to Wellbeing Exeter each year.
A Wellbeing Exeter impact report published a week after the city council’s decision to increase its funding said that a total of 5,500 people had accessed its services in the preceding eight years.
The council said the project had saved “almost £2 million” in public service delivery costs during that time.
Citizens Advice Exeter, which operates from the city council office building in Dix’s Field, will be closed entirely all next week before transitioning to newly-limited arrangements for drop-in and telephone advice and pre-booked appointments from next month.
It is currently booking appointments up to four weeks ahead.
The city council’s plans to relocate to new premises are expected to preclude it continuing to provide Citizens Advice Exeter with city centre accommodation.
Citizens Advice Exeter’s crowdfunding campaign has so far raised £12,000, and runs to 14 October. Donations of up to £250 will be match-funded by Aviva.
