About Us

Who we are

Melton Borough Citizens Advice Bureau is an independant charity which forms part of the national Citizens Advice organisation. We are made up of paid staff and volunteers, all trained to provide the best possible service.

What we do

The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) service has two aims:

• To ensure that individuals do not suffer through lack of knowledge of their rights and responsibilities or of the services available to them, or through an inability to express their needs effectively.

And equally

• To exercise a responsible influence on the development of social policies and services, both locally and nationally.

The advice given by bureaux is free, independent, impartial and confidential. The service is non-judgemental, offering assistance as appropriate to all callers. It aims to be equally accessible to everyone who seeks or needs its help, regardless of age, class, race, religion, gender, disability or sexuality. All advice workers, whether paid or volunteer, are professionally trained to provide an accurate, quality service and to be supportive to clients.

The CAB service works to:

• Inform people about the law and how it affects them; about their rights and responsibilities; and about how they may be able to satisfy their needs.
• Advise people on the options available to them and on the potential consequences of different courses of action.
• Support people as they consider and decide what to do, listening to their concerns and helping them move forward.
• Assist people in pursuing their chosen course of action by negotiation, representation and referral to other sources of help needed.
• Influence those responsible for policies and services by bringing to their notice the problems people experience and recommending changes.

Citizens Advice Bureaux deal with over six million enquiries a year, giving detailed information, advice and support to people on every subject. The majority of problems concern social security benefits, debt, employment, housing and the law.

There are currently nearly 700 main bureaux in England and Wales with another 1090 places where CAB advice is available. Over 15,000 trained volunteers work in the bureaux, together with paid staff including bureau managers and specialist advisers.

In addition to this, more than 7000 volunteers serve on bureau management committees. Together they provide the largest advice service in the UK.

Each bureau is a seperate charity managed by its own trustee board and must meet membership quality standards in order to affiliate to Citizens Advice (the national organisation). Citizens Advice provides a range of services to support bureaux in their work; these include the information system, training, field support, quality audits, social policy, press and publicity, parliamentary liaison and information technology.

Local authorities remain the principle source of funding for bureaux, but the proportion from other sources is rising and currently stands at more than 30%.

You can find out more about what we do on our services page.

You can also find out more about us by viewing our bureau's Annual Report (PDF).