Don’t let a good thing die: Why the Citizens Advice Bureau must stay
News that a community service that helped more than 160,000 Aucklanders last year could close might have fallen through the gaps in a city currently besieged by weather crises. But it’s an issue that deserves attention, even if you’ve never needed to use the Citizens Advice Bureau. Because some day, you might.
As part of its draft budget review, Auckland Council proposes reducing funding, or cutting it altogether, to the 32 CAB locations in Ta¯ maki Makaurau. For a council tasked with finding tens of millions of dollars in savings, the $2 million in operational costs for the CAB look enticing. And there are some solid arguments to suggest the CAB ought to be funded wholly by central government (more on that later).
But the worst of all results would be the closure of this crucial and extremely popular service, which, like a lot of services, has been busy as heck helping people after the Auckland floods.
This is the most grassroots of grassroots resources; a place where anyone can ask almost anything. This broad remit is both a blessing (a huge database of information covering 300 subject areas) and potentially a curse; it must be devilishly hard to create a coherent and compelling public narrative for a service that does so much good across such a scattered range of subject matter.
On a basic, very human level, CAB answers the questions that ordinary people can’t get answered – or just don’t know where to start. It’s a ‘‘place’’ (volunteers operate from a number of places including public libraries) which is friendly, accessible, and, crucially, does not presuppose you have any prior expertise or knowledge.
On Friday I asked the web’s town-square (by which I mean Twitter; one of the last things this cursed platform is useful for) and the response showed a wide range of interactions with CAB, many of them with wonderful results. How to cancel an order with a pushy salesperson (consumer affairs); tackling a landlord over a leaking water tank (residential tenancy issues); pay disputes (industrial relations); guidance for divorce proceedings, helping with a stalker, employment law and small business advice, the list goes on.
New migrants to New Zealand are particularly dependent on the service – one told me she didn’t know what she would have done without it. I was told of queues ‘‘out the door’’ at public libraries when the CAB volunteers visit each week.
People don’t lose their rights under law in Aotearoa just because they don’t necessarily know those rights exist or how to access them – the CAB closes that gap. In my own work I have referred people there; people who simply can’t afford to pay a private-practice lawyer (CAB works in concert with the free of charge Community Law service, often from the same premises).
The barriers people face getting the information they need include digital literacy – that’s a biggie. In 2021 CABNZ petitioned Parliament to address digital exclusion, calling for central government to kick in more funding as it took more services exclusively online.
That the on-the-ground services the CAB offers are funded by local authorities is a quirk of history. The British Citizens Advice Bureau was set up on the eve of World War II, initially reconnecting relatives in bombed-out city areas during the Blitz. It operated in a delightfully prosaic manner, doling out advice including how to raise chickens and how to make the soap ration go a bit further. Funding came from local authorities, and when the idea came to New Zealand in the 70s, so did the funding model.
Certainly there will be submissions to the council when those open on February 28; pleas to keep the funding as it is – because that’s where the fight is right now. The council has a point, though, when it says much of the CAB’s advice is on issues that fall under central government – immigration and Work and Income are examples.
The Government’s counterclaim is that the council is required to ‘‘foster community wellbeing’’ under the 2019 Local Government (Community Wellbeing) Amendment Act. The CAB agrees – according to chief executive Kerry Dalton: ‘‘It makes sense that a local community service, both run and delivered by volunteers from that community should be funded by the council which works for and is funded by that same community.’’
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Dr Duncan Webb acknowledges the ‘‘crucial role’’ the CAB plays and that ministerial funding for CABNZ – the Wellington head office – is periodically reviewed via the normal Cabinet process.
In a 1940s promotional video made by Britain’s Ministry of Information, a war widow gets advice from a CAB worker on accessing a dependant’s allowance through her soldier son. In the grainy black and white footage, she declares: ‘‘It’s such a relief to talk to someone about these matters.’’
That film might be almost 80 years old, but the sentiment – and the relief – will be the same for CAB clients to this day. By whatever means, this service must be saved.
This is the most grassroots of grassroots resources; a place where anyone can ask almost anything.