When the prospect of a world war loomed in 1939, the National Council of social services established a group to look at how to meet the needs of the civilian population in war-time London. Citizens Advice Bureau was established throughout the country.
From the start, volunteers who worked from public buildings, private houses, ran the service. Advisors dealt with problems relating to the loss of ration books, homelessness and evacuation. They also helped locate missing relatives and prisoners of war. Debt quickly became a key issue as income was reduced due to call-ups.
Today there are 462 member Citizens Advice Bureaux across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each one is an independent registered charity helping people to resolve their legal, money and other problems by providing free advice and influencing policy makers. The network still relies on over 20,000 trained volunteers to keep the service running, and provides free advice from over 3000 locations.
In April 2003 the Citizens Advice Service was launched in Gibraltar. It is a registered charity and is run by a Trust. The Gibraltar Citizens Advice Bureau is affiliated to the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureau (NACAB) UK. All the training for the Gibraltar bureau has been facilitated by NACAB, UK.
Since the launch in 2003 GCAB has been conscious of our role to uphold standards so that clients get consistently high quality services. Our main objective has been to meet the needs of as many people as possible. Core services ensure we target those most in need. All our services have been leased on a shared understanding of what the public needs and what works well. We have introduced different and more flexible ways of working to meet this need.
We have made greater use of partnerships (internal and external) to meet the needs of clients at both local and international level. Our focus has been on the need to win hearts and minds–share understanding, also gather and share best practice in service-delivery to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
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