ABOUT US

The Bureau

The Citizens Advice Bureau in Swale was formed by merging the Faversham & District Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) and the Sittingbourne & Sheppey CAB on 1 June 2004. The organisation is a Charitable company limited by guarantee providing free and confidential advice in Faversham, Sheppey, Sittingbourne and the surrounding villages in the Borough of Swale on the north coast of Kent, UK. The Memorandum and Articles of Association can be downloaded here.

The Bureau has three branches in Faversham, Sheppey and Sittingbourne. As well as providing "drop-in" services for clients most weekdays, a phone enquiry line is available four days per week, and the CAB responds to over 70 phone enquiries per month. Out of hours, the CAB provides a "24/7" automated telephone advice line.

Appointments are available for a range of support including Welfare Benefits, Debt Advice, Housing, Employment Tribunals, a Duty Solicitor and Form Filling. Following feedback from a client satisfaction survey, appointments for generalist advice were introduced in January 2002.

We can also provide help through Signing, Induction Loops and Interpreters in Nepali, Punjabi. Hindi, and Urdu.

In 2001/2002 the CAB became one of the first organisations in the Borough to be awarded the Legal Service Commission (LSC) General Help Quality Mark. Our Welfare Benefits and Debt Advice Casework is accredited to the LSC Specialist Quality Standard.

Quality of Advice

The quality of advice given to clients is assured through adhering to the Citizens Advice Membership Scheme and the Community Legal Service Quality Mark. Procedures are in place to ensure compliance with the health and safety of all staff, clients and visitors.

Our Staff

• The CAB has a Manager and Deputy Manager who are paid part-time from core funds.
• We employ 24 paid staff, all but six of whom are part time. These include a Welfare Benefits Caseworker, three Debt Advisors, an Employment Caseworker, a Housing Caseworker and a Caseworker for Faversham.
• The majority of the workforce are volunteers with 69 volunteer advisors during the last year. All advice staff undergo assessment and free training by the Bureau and work a minimum of six hours per week. They can qualify for a Certificate in Advice Work, and the training and experience gained are invaluable assets in many other jobs.
• The time the Volunteers give to the CAB is estimated to be worth £250,00 per year. However, they do have support costs in terms of training, supervision, travel, etc., and this is estimated to be approximately £2,000 per volunteer advisor per year.
• We are particularly pleased to see a number of law students or recently qualified graduates volunteering at our Bureau. They make a very valuable contribution to our general advice services while they are gaining experience to help them obtain placements within the law industry.
• Our staff come from a diverse range of backgrounds and an age range spanning seven decades!

We are always looking for new volunteers to join our team.
If you are interested, please come in and see us,
phone, email or write to the Manager.

Premises

Sheppey CAB premises are all on the ground floor (no steep and narrow staircases), the premises have been fitted out to a very high specification and there is no damp, but they are very hot in the summer and we are addressing this problem with the landlord. As we are in more suitable premises, with regards to a drop-in service we have been able to deal with clients’ problems faster.

We were the first tenants of this new community building and we hope to be joined by a range of other organisations. We are grateful to Citizens Advice and some local companies for grants and donations to help with the move.

Our other two offices present difficulties. At Sittingbourne the premises are dated and spread over several floors which are connected by very steep stairs. The lease expired in November 2008 and because no suitable alternative was available at a rate we could afford we have extended the lease for 5 years to enable us to find more appropriate accommodation.

At Faversham the premises are largely on the ground floor but the space is inadequate and again we are seeking an alternative site.

Staff are frequently working in very cramped conditions in Sittingbourne and Faversham and if we are to continue to expand our activities we need more office space.

ICT

We have adopted the Citizens Advice CASE recording system in all three Bureaux and have begun to use it for case recording. This involved a considerable and prolonged effort in all Bureaux and was particularly revolutionary in Faversham, where previously only a manual case recording system was in use. This development requires completion during the current financial year.

Trustee Board

A Board of 12 members oversees policy and planning in the Bureau. The members of the Trustee Board are also volunteers drawn from the local community with three nominated by the Borough Council. Members are elected for three years after which they must be re-elected at the following AGM. They meet four times a year. The Bureau Manager, Deputy Manager and up to four staff representatives also sit on the Board, but they have no voting rights. The current Chairman is Robin Duncan, Manager of Human Resources at Shepherd Neame Brewery.

Friends of the CAB in Swale

If you would like to get personally involved in supporting the CAB, why not become a Friend of the CAB in Swale?