Citizens Advice Guernsey is a local charity, but is a member of the National Citizens Advice network.
Our trained advisers provide a free and confidential telephone service from The Bridge, St Sampson’s. Information and advice is offered to our clients on almost any subject.
An appointment can be made with our specialist Money Advisers for help with budgeting or negotiation on unmanageable debt.
The improvement of policies that affect people’s lives is an equal aim to giving individual advice. Advisers identify emerging trends and note ongoing issues so our voluntary Social Policy Coordinator can inform policy makers about the problems people are having.
The best way to tackle any problem is at its source, treating causes rather than symptoms. It saves people from suffering the same problems over and over again.
Our work on social policy reaches and affects all Islanders, not only those who contact us for help.
Citizens Advice Guernsey deals with approximately 12,000 enquiries each year. This means that we have a large amount of data on the problems experienced by local people, and we use these anonymous statistics to influence policy makers within the States and other organisations in their decisions.
Over the last year we have been involved in twenty initiatives including:
We give talks to community groups, schools as well as to professionals that are in direct contact with those Islanders most likely to need help.
Each summer we send copies of our leaflets to 260 community sites such as doctors’ surgeries, shops, schools and churches.
Every spring we send out copies of our promotional leaflets in the most common languages to 230 places where guest workers are most likely to live or work.
These tour many community sites throughout the year.
Every September we hold an Awareness Week to remind people that we are always here to help.
As a charity we hold an Annual General Meeting every year, open to the public as well as our Management Committee, Volunteers and Members.
We produce an Annual Report which contains information on our work including the amount and type of enquiries we have had during the previous year.
We include information about the different social policy work undertaken on behalf of Islanders.
It also gives details of our fundraising as well as the annual accounts.
If you would like to see a copy of our most recent Annual Report, please click here.