Campaign Work

One of the aims of the Citizens Advice service is to exercise a responsible influence on the development of local services and both a local and national level. This means that we talk to Government, local Councils and other policy makers that help them to improve laws and services that effect ordinary people.

We support this work in a number of ways including:

Supplying local evidence using our clients' experiences to highlight areas where policies, legislation or services are failing. Evidence is sent to our Citizens Advice Social Policy Department from CAB's across the country where it is used to produce reports and briefings which are used to highlight problems and campaign for change.  

We also work co-operatively with the other CAB's on matters of common concern to raise issues affecting people living in the Rugby area. These have included a report on Personal Protection Insurance, Store Cards and Homelessness applications.

In this way we are also helping people who have never set foot in the bureau who are suffering from the effects of poor or ineffective legislation, policy or services.

An example of this work is that private tenants won't lose their rental deposits in future thanks to a successful CAB campaign. 1.5million people may benefit from the amendment to the Housing Act 2004 that establishes an independent statutory scheme for administering the deposits of tenants in the private rented sector.

Thousands of such tenants had visited their local CAB in recent years to complain that their landlord had unfairly withheld their deposit at the end of the tenancy and we were forced to advise that there was relatively little that could be done about the situation.

The new legally binding scheme will place deposits in a trust fund and there will be an independent arbitration system in the event of a dispute between landlord and tenant. A fairer system brought about by the campaigning and social policy work of Citizens Advice and our partner Shelter, using evidence from clients across the country over a period of ten years.