Housing among biggest concerns

Thursday 30 May 2019

Housing is among the biggest concerns for local people using Citizen's Advice Guernsey in 2018 along with family, money issues and the law.

An annual report from the Citizen's Advice Bureau of the calls received to the free service last year showed an increase in enquiries about debt.

The service, which celebrated 40 years operating in Guernsey, compiles information (in line with data protection regulations) to assist government and communicate with the public about trends in enquiries. 

Citizen's Advice has a number of paid staff as well as volunteers, including the law specialist advisers from Mourant Ozannes who are on hand on Wednesdays to give advice. It received £73,000 from the Friends of Citizen's Advice charity shop and a £20,000 grant from the States of Guernsey towards its running costs. 

Information from enquiries about housing was used for a draft report on reforms to the General Housing law by the Committee for Environment and Infrastructure. Of the enquiries about debt the most common in 2018 came from individuals with medical, tax and utility bills. 

Pictured: Enquiries in 2018 taken from the annual report.

During 2018 there were 2,371 enquiries on money-related issues to the advisors including banking services, insurance, pensions, credit and liability for debt. 136 people were referred to our Money Advice caseworkers of whom 31 unfortunately failed to attend.

74 clients received a full financial restitution negotiation service on £3,306,885 of unaffordable debt. Another 31 received support in making their own negotiation or assistance with budgeting.

The largest amounts were secured and unsecured loans followed by credit and store card debt, but medical, tax and utility bills were the most common.

Debt enquiries had risen by 14%. The underlying causes of this indebtedness when recorded was not predominantly poor budgeting at 9%, which was down by 50% from 2017 figures. Health issues 42% (up by 13%), Job loss and reduced hours 8% (down by 12%), Relationship breakdown 12% were joined by Business failure at 13% as major factors.

You can read the whole report here.