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2024-03-31-accounts

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Trusted advice in times of change

Annual report 2023–2024

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We are Citizens Advice We exist to shape a society where people face far fewer problems.

“Without the help of Citizens Advice, I would have had all my possessions taken away and I would have been evicted. If it hadn’t been for Citizens Advice, I’d be on the streets right now. That’s the bottom line.” Derek, Stevenage

Trustees’ report

01 Setting the scene 4 – 12

03 Our strategy 18 – 22

05 Moving forward, transformation 37 – 41

02

04 How we helped people 23 – 36

What we achieved in 2023 to 2024 13 – 17

Strategic report

Financial statements

77 Independent auditor’s report

42 Our structure, governance and management, including volunteers 59 Risk and internal controls

82 Financial statements

The narrative reporting in the Annual Report (Trustees' Report and Strategic Report) incorporates all Companies Act 2006 requirements for the Directors' Report and Strategic Report, and Charities SORP requirements for the Trustees' Report.

62 Energy disclosures

66 Financial review

Citizens Advice Annual Report and Accounts 2022 to 2023Citizens Advice Annual Report and Accounts 2023– 4 3

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Introduction

We can all face problems that seem complicated or intimidating. At Citizens Advice, we believe no one should have to face these problems without good quality advice. When we say we’re for everyone, we mean it. People rely on us because we’re independent and impartial.

Citizens Advice offers free, confidential advice online, over the phone and in person.

This annual report and accounts are for the national Citizens Advice charity. We work with a network of local Citizens Advice charities, whom we’ve referenced throughout this report, but they are separate, independent charities. The national charity enables local charities to deliver their services and we jointly deliver specific national services.

No one else sees so many people with so many different problems, and that gives us a unique insight into the challenges people are facing today. With the right evidence, we can show big organisations―from companies right up to the government―how they can make things better for people.

When we say we’re for everyone, we mean it. People rely on us because we’re independent and totally impartial.

That’s why we’re here: to give people the advice and the confidence they need to find their way forward―whoever they are, and whatever their problem.

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A message from our Chair

I’m enormously proud to be opening this annual report. Proud of our volunteers and colleagues who worked tirelessly for the millions of people who needed our advice and support last year. And proud to have taken on the role of Chair for a service I have long admired.

I started on 1 March 2024, and since then I’ve been talking to our volunteers and colleagues across the country about the challenges facing our service and the problems facing those who rely on us. The issues will feel familiar to anyone who has been following our progress over recent years.

Our analysis showed that nearly 5 million people across England and Wales are in a negative budget, stuck in the red and building up debt to get by. More than 2 million more are escaping a negative budget by cutting their essential spending back to unsafe levels―for example, going short of food or heating.

Money is of course at the heart of things. The cost of living crisis persists. Whilst declining inflation made fewer dramatic headlines as the financial year came to an end, the impact on our clients was still hard felt. Incomes have not caught up with prices, and we head into another year in which a large proportion of the people we help with debt are in a negative budget. Even after expert advice, they have more going out than coming in.

I’m struck not only by the number of people and families who live in these awful circumstances, but also by the depth of the problem for those who experience it. The average monthly deficit for a negative budget household went from £270 in 2019 to 2020 to £365 in 2023 to 2024.

As people’s problems mount up, demand for our services grows. But the money to pay for those services, in real terms, lags far behind. This means our volunteers and colleagues are working harder than ever―to help tackle debt, advise on consumer

This spiral of debt is something we unpacked in detail through our National Red Index, which we launched in February.

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rights, provide guidance on pensions and help witnesses in courts.

We all know that doing more with less is a sticking plaster at best, despite our resolve. We need new approaches to break the cycle. That’s why we’re evolving our strategy and altering how we work.

We’ve been consulting across our service on how to make the relationship between our local and national offices more robust. And also looking to improve how we operate and are structured at a national level. This is hard work, and means difficult times for our colleagues. I’m grateful for their ideas and their determination to work through these changes.

As we reach our 85th year, we can look back on decades of achievement and millions of lifechanging moments for the people we support. I’m confident we can look forward to decades of success to come. By harnessing the power of our dedicated local offices and their deep roots in the community. By advocating for policy change on the strength of our unrivalled evidence about the problems people face. And being there for people in their time of need.

I look forward to working with the trustee board, executive team and every one of our volunteers and colleagues to make that happen.

Matthew Swindells

Chair

As we reach our 85th year, we can look back on decades of achievement and millions of life-changing moments for the people we support.

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A message from our Chief Executive

As our Chair notes in his introduction, 2023 to 2024 has been a year in which the long-term effects of the cost-of-living crisis have continued to negatively impact the people we help. Though inflation has fallen from previous record highs, millions of people are still struggling with the burden of their debt. Others face eviction and possible homelessness.

At its core, this ongoing hardship is rooted in the simple fact that millions of households have more money going out on essentials than coming in. The unusual reality of negative budgets has not gone away and should be of central concern to policymakers across government.

Our volunteers and colleagues throughout England, Wales and the Channel Islands continue to do firstrate work in extraordinarily difficult circumstances to make practical improvements to people’s lives. But, as a service, we know that people’s problems are becoming more complex and harder to solve.

That is in part why, last year, we launched our new living strategy, ’Transforming together: trusted advice in times of change’. This marks a significant development in how Citizens Advice thinks about where we’re going and how we get there.

We’re seeking, as a whole service, to centre ourselves around 3 missions, where progress will make the biggest difference to the people we help. We want to ensure our service is fit for the future and our advice responds to their changing needs, both in terms of the advice they need and the ways they access it.

We have long-since known that minoritised communities find it harder to access our advice, and are less satisfied with them when they do. For a service that seeks to empower people, the fact that those most disempowered by structural discrimination face such obstacles is a failing we all need to address.

And we need to do whatever we can to take earlier action to prevent people from reaching crisis point. A hallmark of the dual Covid and cost-of-living crises

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has been a rapid rise in the number of people who need emergency support, such as food banks, through our services. Whether through our advocacy work or our advice services, we need to do whatever we can to reduce this acute need.

As the new government tackles the profound challenges we face as a society, Citizens Advice’s core values will be vital.

Our commitment to working holistically―seeing the whole range of people’s problems and trying to treat them together, not in isolation―will be crucial in renewing public services. Our strong community roots and our mature approach to partnerships, which challenges and seeks to improve in equal measure, can play a key role in an environment in which trust in government has been low.

As I enter my fourth year as Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, one of my principal learnings has been the speed with which the ground can shift beneath our feet. New problems emerge as the wider situation changes. As a key organisation on the frontline that helps people dealing with these issues, we need to constantly be flexible and innovative in our approach, embedding the core values of the service.

Clare Moriarty

Chief Executive Officer

As the new government tackles the profound challenges we face as a society, Citizens Advice's core values will be vital.

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About Citizens Advice

The Citizens Advice service is made up of a network of 240[*] independent local Citizens Advice charities across England, Wales and the Channel Islands, and the national charity. Our role as the national charity is to enable local Citizens Advice to deliver their services and jointly deliver other services at a national level, including the Witness Service and our website.

How we deliver our services with our local Citizens Advice

We offer local advice from around 1,900 locations across England, Wales and the Channel Islands. We run national Citizens Advice from 4 offices which provide the underlying systems and written resources that our network uses. These include:

Our service is delivered by our highly-trained people ― around 19,000 volunteers and 9,800 colleagues.

Throughout 2023 to 2024, along with our core generalist advice services, we delivered a number of specialist services. These included the Witness Service, Pension Wise, the consumer service, the Help to Claim (HtC) service, the Money and Pensions Service, and Advicelink across Wales. We’re the statutory consumer champion for the energy market and the statutory consumer watchdog for the postal service.

Clients often come to us needing help with complicated inter-related problems. These have continued to grow in complexity since the pandemic began and throughout the cost-of-living crisis. We’re uniquely placed to help our clients by offering an integrated approach, with our core advice services able to draw on specialised support nationally.

We also provide the infrastructure, content and advocacy to deliver our charitable purposes. The Witness Service is available in all criminal courts in England and Wales.

National offices Local Citizens Advice Witness Service courts

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Who we helped in 2023 to 2024

National and local Citizens Advice helps millions of people every year and in 2023 to 2024 we helped 2.68 million people one-to-one, by phone, email, webchat and in person. This included:

51.7 million visits to our website

1.8 million people helped on the phone (down 4.8% from 1.87 million in 2022 to 2023)

760,000 people helped by email (up 5.5% from 729,000 in 2022 to 2023)

627,000 people were helped face to face (up 28.7% from 457,000 in 2022 to 2023)

168,000 people helped on webchat (up 2.8% from 166,000 in 2022 to 2023)

80,000 witnesses supported (up 1.4% from 79,000 in 2022 to 2023)

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People come to us with a range of different problems, from benefits to housing, and immigration to debt. Many people have more than one type of problem― for instance, a housing problem with a debt problem. They could also come with 2 different debts, or 2 different benefits. Someone visiting our website might have a number of different problems, and so might look at several different pages.

Too many people we’ve helped with debt are now living in negative budgets, without enough income to cover essential outgoings like housing costs, utility bills and food. This is driving a mounting debt crisis.

We increased our face-to-face advice provision for the second year running following the pandemic and have also met the sustained high demand for our online advice content. We continue to adapt to provide help to people in a way that works for them.

Our value to society

We also publish an impact report where you can read more about our outcomes for clients.

£1 For every spent on the Citizens Advice service, we deliver:

£14.60 £1.90 £7.90 wider economic government and financial gain to and social benefits public services saved our clients delivered

For more information on how we estimate our value to society, see our technical annex.

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Gale’s story

Gale*, a single woman in her 40s, lived with her mother in a house rented from her local council.

When her mother died in late 2022, Gale’s council said she could no longer stay in the three-bedroom property and would have to move into a flat.

Gale has mental and physical health issues and was receiving income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), a benefit which supports people with a disability or health condition affecting their ability to work.

Under her local council’s Council Tax Support (CTS) scheme, people receiving ESA are entitled to a 75% reduction in their council tax bills.

But Gale was told she would not receive support for her housing costs unless she switched from ESA to Universal Credit and paid more council tax, leaving her much worse off.

Grieving the loss of her mother and struggling to cope financially, Gale turned to Citizens Advice for help.

“It’s very unfair because I had no choice. I had to swap to Universal Credit to claim housing costs and I was penalised for that. It's a lot of money to lose and I’ve had to cut back. The impact has been huge, emotionally.

“Citizens Advice were very good. They went through all the details and helped fill out the forms. It took a lot of weight off my mind. Suffering with anxiety, things like that can really mess me up, so it was reassuring to know there was someone there to support me.”

“Citizens Advice were very good. They went through all the details and helped fill out the forms...”

  • Names have been changed to protect anonymity

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02 What we achieved in 2023 to 2024

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Delivery of our Business Plan for 2023 to 2024

We made significant progress in the previous financial year. Our business plan had 4 themes―advice, advocacy, inclusive access and organisational health.

1. Advice

Our advice theme related to the provision of advice in all its forms. We aimed to:

1. Protect and, where possible, increase the one-toone advice provision within the available service, to enable more clients to access advice

2. Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of advice-giving processes to enable advisers to support more clients, whilst still providing a quality service

3. Make our advice fit for the future by understanding, defining and developing our place in the wider advice ecosystem

For ‘advice’ we:

resecured our Help to Claim funding and won or secured £66m out of the £67m funded services income target. We distributed funding from donations to local Citizens Advice, with over £36m of income gains for clients

made significant progress with volunteering transformation, commissioning research to better understand the value of volunteering across our service and creating a toolkit to help volunteer managers support volunteer wellbeing

expanded our energy advice capacity and developed a proposition for Consumer Energy Debt Advice

started modernising the technology behind the consumer service, building on the successful rollout of our Connect platform, improving the client experience of our phone services and reducing costs

served 59% of our advice content to the public and advisers across the UK through our new content platform, Contentful, in partnership with Citizens Advice Scotland

trialled new approaches to improving the on-site navigation and ease of search our website content, introducing ways to enable clients to more easily self-serve

2. Advocacy

Our advocacy theme sought to maximise our impact and opportunities to feed back from frontline insights to our advocacy work. We aimed to:

1. Test the idea that a stronger feedback loop between advice and advocacy would achieve greater impact for our clients

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2. Further position ourselves as the leading organisation for bringing frontline insights into policymaking

For ‘advocacy’ we:

established ‘negative budgets’ as a policy

framework, launched our National Red Index, and called for government action to address the causes of people’s costs exceeding their income

appeared at select committees to give evidence on a range of issues, including energy support and regulation

3. Inclusive access

Our inclusive access theme aimed to tackle the ongoing disparities in access and experience for clients from marginalised groups. We aimed to:

1. Improve the accessibility of our service for marginalised clients

2. Improve the overall client experience for clients of colour

3. Increase the voice of clients and potential clients (especially those who are most minoritised and marginalised) in all of our work to improve our ability to meet their needs

For ‘inclusive access’ we:

progressed our work to close the access and experience gap with an equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) dashboard for our client data, brand campaign work for people of colour and improvements to our discrimination advice

established a Closing the Gap community of practice made up of colleagues across national Citizens Advice

recruited a Senior EDI Specialist and Race Equity Specialist to support local Citizens Advice to mobilise on mission 2, and co-ordinate our racial disparities research project

undertook work on involving people with lived experience, including creating a participation community of practice

reduced the national organisation’s gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps

4. Organisational health

Our organisational health theme was our most wide-ranging and focused on both the underpinning features of a successful organisation and system and the longer-term direction. We aimed to:

1. Improve the experience of colleagues in priority aspects of the employee lifecycle, increasing colleague attraction, satisfaction and retention

2. Build our understanding of system-wide finances and our strategic finance and funding options, prioritising our short- and longer-term sustainability activities accordingly

3. Work collaboratively across the service to build common purpose around our key opportunities and challenges. And work together to address them, progressively determining how to evolve

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our system and our strategic partnerships, with and for clients

4. Focus on strengthening our organisational ―

foundations in the national organisation including the key capabilities, processes, systems and behaviours needed to support the effective performance of Citizens Advice

For ‘organisational health’ we:

launched our strategy and the local Citizens Advice Taskforce, a group of local and national leaders, including local Citizens Advice trustees, to help steer our strategy mobilisation

took steps to improve financial sustainability through the business planning process and developed a medium-term financial plan

Our funding model continues to constrain the supply of advice and the support we can provide. With flat or decreased funding, we protected rather than increased the capacity of our funded services.

As financial sustainability was a key focus for our planning, we diverted leadership and colleague time to identifying savings and implementing robust financial and people change assessments and processes during the second half of the year.

We expected to complete work to move advice content by March 2024 but that milestone was moved to July 2024. Due to insufficient capacity, we were not able to complete all of the improvements to our discrimination advice that we had planned. We were also unable to complete a lived experience framework and principles. We’ve made progress with our funding strategy but there is more to do.

We adjusted the original strategy outputs for the year and prioritised establishing the Local Citizens Advice Taskforce and mobilising our new missions.

Our funding model continues to constrain the supply of advice and the support we can provide. With flat or decreased funding, we protected rather than increased the capacity of our funded services.

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Business development and income generation

Financial sustainability is key to our future delivery. We continue working to secure longer-term funding for the whole service―at a national, local and, increasingly, regional level. Devolution is here to stay, and with it brings opportunities and challenges.

In the past year, we have established an organisational-wide regional funding approach that will enable local offices to compete effectively for devolved and regionalised funding.

In the last year we have invested in our fundraising team to enable us to maximise opportunities for funding frontline services, advocacy and infrastructure. We continue to maximise opportunities to grow our unrestricted income, alongside winning funding for restricted projects within key strategic areas. We will continue to work to improve this position, and recognise the need to continuously assess our activities against our strategy to maintain a sustainable unrestricted reserves position.

More stable funding helps us to plan further into the future and ensures that our services are financially sustainable and resilient. At the end of the financial year, just over half of our nationallysecured funding is through agreements of over one year.

In 2023 to 2024 we:

secured the extension of key national services― Pension Wise, the Witness Service and the Wales Single Advice Fund

competed for and won the Help to Claim bid, awarded by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

obtained nearly £500,000 in funding to improve technical infrastructure support for debt advice

continued to build relationships with Trusts and Foundations, winning £1m of new business and sustaining £1.5m of partnerships

worked with our network of local Citizens Advice to explore how we can support them to fundraise locally within their communities

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Trustees' report – Setting the scene

03 Our strategy

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Our strategy, vision and ambitions

In October 2023, we launched our strategy, Transforming together: trusted advice in times of change. As well as setting out how we’ll deliver it and the enablers that will help us to do so, our strategy introduces a move to missions-based working.

This is a practical response to the need to ensure our work has the greatest impact. And a way of harnessing the power of being one service with many leaders.

Our strategy acknowledges that our service is rich in brilliant practice and innovative approaches, and brimming with ideas for the future. But also that we haven’t always used the full power of our federated network to enable us to make the most of our collective resources.

A missions-based approach focuses our collective efforts on the biggest challenges. It also supports a new way of working together as one service that centres on learning and innovation. We hope that by encouraging innovation, attracting new investment and collectively problem solving, we will have the greatest impact for the people we are here to support.

Our missions are to:

1. Provide advice fit for the future―We’ll be there for people when they need us in the ways that help make the biggest impact

2. Close the gap―We’ll end the disparities in access and experience for marginalised people

3. Take early action―We’ll prevent more people reaching crisis by addressing problems earlier

Equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)

Our EDI approach recognises that inequalities in society lead marginalised communities to face greater disadvantages, which drives demand for our services. For instance, our research shows that marginalised communities are disproportionately

affected by issues with benefits, housing, employment and household finances.

The continued impact of the cost-of-living crisis is also more likely to lead marginalised communities to need our advice, support and advocacy. This understanding underpins our new organisational strategy.

Whilst all our strategic missions relate to how we provide our services and advocate for change, mission 2 has an explicit commitment to ending the disparities in access and experience for marginalised people. To do this, we will work hard to reach the people who need us most, prioritise the needs of marginalised people and challenge disparities and inequalities, both in how we provide advice and advocate for change.

We have begun work on a range of activities to deliver on mission 2. These focus on improving

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access for disabled clients, improving access and experience for clients of colour and centring lived experience. The work has included:

launching an organisational-wide EDI data

dashboard and accompanying monthly dashboard sessions. The dashboard is a collection of organisational data that covers client experience across our service, people surveys in local offices and people data for the national office

starting our racial disparities research project. We know clients of colour are less likely to recommend Citizens Advice and have a poorer experience when they use our service. We’re undertaking a flagship research project, grounded in design justice principles, to understand these disparities

establishing a Closing the Gap Community of Practice to ensure we can have the greatest impact in addressing equality disparities in service delivery

recruiting a new Digital Accessibility Manager and Senior Race Equity Specialist

launching a new brand campaign that centres clients of colour

Partnerships and sponsors

We build new partnerships to help us support as many people as possible. Securing funding and working with partners are absolutely essential to our financial sustainability in the most challenging economic situation we’ve seen in a generation.

The backing we receive from our partners and supporters enables us to continue helping the people who need us. The demand for our services is still at record levels, with client issues becoming more complex and harder to resolve.

It is more important than ever before that our service is sustainable and able to reach as many people as possible. The funding we receive through our partnerships not only allows us to fund vital programmes and services but also helps us to work more strategically. We are so grateful for the support we receive year on year, thank you!

Aviva

So far, as part of our strategic partnership, Aviva has donated £7 million over 2 years to increase the capacity of our service. This is due to their ambition to help the UK Get Ready for the future.

Aviva funding has enabled our Adviceline advisers to support almost 50,000 people with 117,000 issues. And it has improved our website advice, increasing the number of clients who can self-serve by 10%. We’ve also developed an impactful programme of corporate volunteering activity which provides unique opportunities for Aviva colleagues to directly support our service.

British Gas

We received a donation of £150,000 from British Gas to help build capacity into our Help Through Hardship helpline, which provides critical advice and support to people in crisis.

Cadent Foundation

With support from the Cadent Foundation, we conducted a 12-month pilot targeted at 8 of the most deprived communities in areas where Cadent operates. This offered clients assistance with specialist energy efficiency advice and income maximisation.

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We did this by having specialist caseworkers support clients with their problems through to resolution, by looking at their circumstances through a holistic lens. As a result of the pilot, we were able to help 1,927 clients, and identified over £2.7m income gain―an average of £1,432 per client.

Lloyds Banking Group plc

We entered a partnership with Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) in September 2022, offering a bespoke referral service for their customers which continued to flourish throughout 2023 to 2024. That year, our partnership supported 4,588 clients with more than 11,800 issues, resulting in a potential income gain of over £2.4 million for Lloyds Banking Group customers.

Macmillan Cancer Support

For over 15 years, Citizens Advice has partnered with Macmillan to provide vital welfare benefits advice to people living with cancer across England. This year, our partnership made a profound impact by supporting over 34,600 people with 200,000 advice issues, including over £112 million in financial gains.

Our advice tangibly improves lives, enabling people to afford better care, nutrition, transport and heating. The partnership demonstrates our shared commitment to empowering those living with cancer.

Mind

We continue to work with Mind on our Help through Hardship partnership. Together with the Trussell Trust, the partnership aims to tackle the underlying causes of poverty, including mental health problems. It does this by offering joined-up advice and support services for people on the lowest incomes and campaigning for a more just support system.

Advisers on the Help through Hardship helpline can refer callers to Mind’s Infoline for information about mental health and how to get support. Local Citizens Advice work with local Mind services to provide holistic support to people experiencing both money and mental health problems.

National Grid

National Grid continues to be a strategic partner of Citizens Advice, supporting vital frontline service delivery through several energy programmes. In the first year of our partnership, more than £20 million of additional income was identified for our clients.

Alongside this, we have delivered a meaningful corporate volunteering programme which gives National Grid colleagues experience on the frontline of advice delivery. This mutually-beneficial programme has enabled us to support an additional 4,226 clients.

NatWest Group

NatWest Group has been supporting a referral service for their customers in partnership with Citizens Advice since 2020. In 2023 to 2024, our partnership supported 4,202 clients with more than 13,200 cases. This resulted in a potential income gain for NatWest Group customers of £1,469,755.

OVO Energy, E.on Next, Shell Energy

We partnered with OVO Energy, E.on Next and Shell Energy who provided funding through the Warm Home Discount (WHD) Industry Initiative to support the successful delivery of the Energy Advice Programme (EAP) across England and Wales.

In 2023 to 2024, through WHD funding, our advisers have provided energy efficiency and income maximisation advice to 10,638 people and identified a staggering £11,282,677 of income gains. We advised on 53,809 energy-related issues and provided £347,193 worth of fuel vouchers.

Southern Gas Networks (SGN), Northern Gas Networks, Wales & West Utilities

In collaboration, the gas distribution networks SGN, Northern Gas Networks, Wales & West Utilities have partnered with Citizens Advice to deliver the Energy Safeguarding and CO Safety Partnership across England and Wales.

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In 2023 to 2024, we trained more than 440 Citizens Advice energy advisers on CO safety, increasing CO awareness amongst 8,620 households. We provided lifesaving CO alarms to 1,982 of the most at-risk households, supported clients with over 42,000 advice issues, and issued 1,113 food and 2,773 fuel vouchers. We also identified a staggering £5,422,362 income gain.

The Trussell Trust

In March 2020, right at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Citizens Advice and the Trussell Trust launched the Help through Hardship helpline, with Mind joining the partnership in 2021.

The free helpline offers personalised, holistic support to people who don’t have enough money for essentials. It can also connect people with a wider range of services and support, like a referral to the Trussell Trust foodbank network for emergency food.

We’ve expanded our partnership to strengthen local connections and use our shared voice to campaign for a more just support system for people facing poverty and mental health problems.

Yorkshire Building Society

We continued our innovative partnership with Yorkshire Building Society and expanded provision in July 2023. This increased our reach in local communities, with 28 local Citizens Advice offices delivering appointments in 41 YBS branches across England and Wales. In 2023 to 2024, our partnership supported 4,206 clients with more than 15,800 issues, resulting in a potential income gain of £1,865,202.

“I needed to fill in forms, but I’m dyslexic and suffer with anxiety. Citizens Advice were very helpful and went through everything with me. It took a big weight off my mind.”

Gale*

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04 How we helped people

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How we helped people

Citizens Advice delivers services across England, Wales and the Channel Islands. Our local Citizens Advice network provides advice through a variety of channels, including in person, over the phone, by email and over webchat. We also provide online advice content on our website.

We use our data to show how people want to receive advice and then respond to that need as best we can.

Demand for our services continues to rise. We work alongside our local network to support them to meet as much of this demand as possible, and to be the trusted advice that clients need in these challenging and changing times.

~~Advice~~

Adviceline

Adviceline is our nationally-supported remote generalist advice service. It is free to use and is our most widely-delivered service, with over 200 local Citizens Advice delivering a combination of phone, webchat and email advice through Adviceline.

This year, our Adviceline phone service answered over 650,000 calls―450,000 of which were unique clients. This means that, since launching in 2013, Adviceline has answered almost 8.5 million calls to people in England and Wales. In addition, in 2023 to 2024, our advisers have answered 25,000 contacts through Adviceline webchat and 21,000 contacts through Adviceline email.

As our generalist advice service, the information and advice our advisers give is extremely diverse, helping clients with all manner of issues. The top issues we helped people with in 2023 to 2024 were tax, benefits, housing, charitable support (such as referrals and crisis support) and relationships and family.

As well as providing direct support to clients, Adviceline plays a pivotal role in connecting clients to our other services. The Adviceline phone service gives clients the option to select our consumer, Help

to Claim or money service. As such, Adviceline can be considered our virtual ‘front door’―connecting millions of people to the support they need.

However, the service also faces continued demand and funding challenges. People are coming to us in greater numbers and with more urgent and complex problems. This means it takes our advisers longer to help them.

The result is that our virtual queues of people are getting longer. We know this is a key issue for clients who use Adviceline, as increasingly they have to wait longer to get through. It’s also challenging for advisers who support―understandably―frustrated clients. Regarding funding, Adviceline is particularly reliant on local statutory funding, which has remained flat for a number of years.

In 2023 to 2024 we worked hard to address these issues where we could. We have secured additional

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funding from major donors and are making use of our technology and data functions, including our new remote phone advice platform. These help us to better understand demand and make the most of our resources.

In the year ahead, we’ll continue to focus on supporting our network to make the best use of current resources to further improve their remote generalist services. At the same time, we’ll work to increase our income to meet demand and funding challenges.

In 2023 to 2024:

93% 24% 55,000 of local Citizens Advice of phone demand additional calls services supported was answered answered―an people over the phone increase of 9% on Adviceline from 2022 to 2023

25,000 webchat contacts were answered

21,000 8.5 email contacts million were answered calls answered by our Adviceline service since 2013

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Money Advice Development team

The Money Advice Development team works to develop money advice services for the network. The work cuts across all 3 missions: Provide advice fit for the future, Close the gap, and Take action early.

In 2023 to 2024, we delivered the following work to support local Citizens Advice and clients:

focused on talking to young people about money and finances by developing content and supporting a number of campaign initiatives established new relationships with the Deaf community and organisations that support those members. These included teaching students financial capability, consumer skills and scams awareness, and creating British Sign Language (BSL) TikTok videos together

supported the relaunch of the National Young Consumer of the Year competition. We will support this again in 2024 to 2025 by working in partnership with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute

Witness service

We provide free and independent support for witnesses and victims in every criminal court in England and Wales, to help them give their best evidence. Our Witness Service is funded by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and provides support for both prosecution and defence witnesses.

Our service recognises that victims and witnesses often have other problems that intersect with their worries about attending court. We work closely with other organisations, including our network of local Citizens Advice. Our trained volunteers work tirelessly to give witnesses practical information and emotional support to feel more confident when giving evidence.

This year:

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Pension Wise

Pension Wise is dedicated to empowering people aged 50 or over through free, impartial guidance about accessing their defined contribution pensions. The service is available across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is delivered in partnership with 36 local Citizens Advice offices. In 2023 to 2024, Pension Wise supported 75,000 clients with an average client satisfaction rate of 98%.

During this period, our phone delivery increased to 95%. This supported the response to demand levels whilst also ensuring that we kept a proportion of our face-to-face delivery for those that needed it. This balance reflects the needs of our clients in an ever-changing delivery landscape. We’re able to provide for those operating in an increasingly digital world, opening up the service to more people whilst continuing to meet the accessibility needs of our most marginalised clients.

As the cost-of-living crisis persists, there is a growing interest in accessing pension savings early, as people consider tapping into pension pots to alleviate financial pressures. We’re committed to helping people understand the implications of this decision and their options, and directing them to support for financial challenges where needed.

We’ve been working on improving the accessibility of the Pension Wise service for Deaf clients. We’ve developed and improved the BSL appointment booking process and have created a social media toolkit that promotes BSL Pension Wise appointments. This has further broadened the reach and accessibility of the service.

Looking ahead, we’re focused on making more improvements to the accessibility of the Pension Wise service, streamlining our booking process, and analysing our data to better support our clients.

Help to Claim

Help to Claim gives people the support they need to claim Universal Credit―from starting an application to getting their first full payment. At a time of a costof-living crisis, this service is even more vital. It ensures that people receive the correct amount of Universal Credit and, where needed, gives them the support to claim―which otherwise they may not have had.

2023 to 2024 was another busy year for Help to Claim, as our service supported 131,000 people on the phone and through webchat. In addition, 194,000

people fully self-served the advice they needed from our website―including our Help to Claim web pages being viewed 2.6 million times over the year.

Almost 9 in 10 (87%) clients said they would have been unable to solve their problem without the support of Citizens Advice, demonstrating how indispensable the Help to Claim service is.

The cost-of-living crisis impacts different communities in different ways and over the year we connected with around 2,600 local organisations. We did this with a focus on developing partnerships to help improve access for marginalised groups.

Help Through Hardship

Citizens Advice and the Trussell Trust have come together to develop a free helpline for people struggling to afford the basics. Operating in England and Wales, the helpline offers personalised advice and support to help address the underlying causes of the client’s hardship. If required, the helpline also makes a quick and seamless referral to a food bank.

In 2023 to 2024 we helped 43,622 clients and issued 65,690 food bank vouchers, resulting in over 130,000

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food parcels being distributed. At a time of a cost-ofliving crisis, these food bank vouchers and the wider support are an essential lifeline for clients.

Our advisers helped to bring in over £40.6m in critical financial gains for these clients. At least £40.3m of this was achieved through increasing clients’ income by claiming their full entitlement to benefits.

Consumer service

The consumer service helps everybody living in England and Wales with any consumer issues they may have―including advice on energy and post. We provide advice, education and research on policy issues. We also have a statutory duty to provide supplier performance information to consumers.

The service is provided through 8 of our local Citizens Advice and is delivered by phone, webchat and email. It is funded by our main funder, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT).

Our consumer service delivers excellent value for money―for every £1 spent on providing the service, consumers on average save £9.

In 2023 to 2024, the consumer service handled:

just over 827,000 total contacts

610,000 general consumer queries

205,000 energy contacts

11,100 post contacts

and 13,745,000 visits were made to the consumer pages of our website

It was an ambitious year, with work well underway to develop the consumer service and bring it onto our Casebook client management tool, which will go live in 2024 to 2025. This will make the service more efficient to deliver for our partners and, most importantly, will provide our clients with a more effective service.

We also introduced a new priority line for our general consumer clients, having previously introduced one for our energy clients. This helps clients to get a faster route into our advisers.

Providing specialist energy support

The consumer service is able to refer qualifying people to priority complaints teams at energy suppliers. This can help resolve problems more quickly.

Vulnerable clients will be referred to the Extra Help Unit (EHU) for additional support. This is a referralonly service and 84% of its referrals come from the consumer service.

Where people have tried and failed to settle a complaint with their energy company, we can refer people to the Energy Ombudsman. The Ombudsman will carry out an impartial review of the complaint and issue a resolution.

Energy

In a year that continued to be challenging for energy consumers, Citizens Advice has been there to provide people with advice and support:

almost 50 million views of our content and messaging across digital and offline channels

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Energy advice projects

In addition to our work on consumer service energy issues, our energy advice projects had their busiest year yet. They mobilised and managed 5 separate energy advice services that resulted in a total of £6.5m funding for advice services through our local offices. This was 40% more than in 2022 to 2023.

Key outcomes for our energy advice in 2023 to 2024 include:

through the expansion of our Energy Advice Programme, we were able to provide detailed advice to almost twice as many clients as in 2022 to 2023

Money and Pensions Service Debt Advice Project

Our Money and Pensions Service-funded Debt Advice Project provides free debt advice across England. It offers this through a national free phone service, webchat and face-to-face provision in over 100 community-based advice agencies.

In addition, we provide a national centre for the processing of Debt Relief Orders (DROs). We also provide a casework service for the Money Advice Trust’s National Debt Line.

We’ve supported over 200,000 people through the cost-of-living crisis by providing our service over multiple channels, so people can get advice in a way that works for them.

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In 2023 to 2024:

our national webchat and email service supported 96,442 new clients, with an 89% satisfaction rate

our national phone service supported 47,734 new clients

we supported 5,308 clients to obtain a DRO, writing off £73m of debt

we provided 29,838 hours of casework support for 7,653 National Debt Line clients

Wales funded services

In Wales we deliver Advicelink Cymru, a targeted service for people most in need of advice services, funded by the Welsh Government under its Single Advice Fund.

Advicelink Cymru offers a quality-assured advice service across Wales, providing advice in Welsh, covering the following advice areas:

62,913 people (77%) we helped were from an identified priority group, including carers, older people, disabled people, people with mental health problems, and those experiencing domestic abuse.

welfare benefits

This year, Advicelink Cymru secured over £47.5 million additional income for the people we helped, and wrote off over £13.2 million of debts.

debt and financial capability

housing

we supported 88,000 people in 108 areas through the work of 97 local Citizens Advice and 11 independent advice agencies

employment and discrimination

Of those surveyed, 81% of people said they would not have been able to find a way forward without Advicelink Cymru.

education

through local delivery, we wrote off £69m of client debt, mostly through Debt Relief Orders or Bankruptcy

In 2023 to 2024, Advicelink Cymru helped 81,979 people with 402,512 issues through 417,887 activities. These are the unique pieces of work that go into resolving a client's issues.

Advicelink Cymru is now made up of 8 services in 6 regions across Wales, delivered by a network of local Citizens Advice offices and funded partners. Services include:

regional community and specialist advice services

Issues with benefits, debt and housing were the main areas people sought help with this year.

a pan-Wales remote phone line

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Private Rented Sector Debt Advice Helpline

Mental Health Crisis Breathing Space

Basic Income Pilot for care leavers

Claim What’s Yours

Debt Relief Order Unit

Basic Income Pilot

The Welsh Government Basic Income Pilot for care leavers gives a monthly pre-tax payment of £1,600 for a duration of 24 months from the month after a young person's 18th birthday. Our Advicelink Cymru service provides all young people in the pilot with financial advice, calculations and education focused on the prevention of financial crisis.

It also provides skills development, and advice and support with day-to-day issues like housing, employment and benefits. This has the aim of supporting young people to live independently at the end of the pilot. This year, as the pilot moved into its exit phase, we helped 250 young people with 981 issues through 966 activities.

Claim What’s Yours

Claim What’s Yours is a Welsh Government-

funded income maximisation campaign. Through a dedicated helpline, it provides free and confidential advice about the benefits people may be entitled to. This year the service answered over 52,000 calls.

Debt Relief Order Unit

In 2023 to 2024, we launched a new pan-Wales Debt Relief Order (DRO) Unit. This Unit, established in response to a changing funding landscape across England and Wales, enables people who are experiencing significant debt issues to apply for a DRO. Over 360 DROs were submitted during the year.

European Union Citizens Rights (EUCR) service

This year our Welsh Government-funded EUCR service came to an end. The service provided free quality-assured information and advice services to EU, EEA and UK citizens through specialist advice services, including tribunal and/or Court

representation services. This enabled these citizens and other migrant citizens who have the Right to Work to resolve any exploitation and/or discrimination issues related to employment.

In this last year of the service, we supported over 260 clients to resolve their cases and over 230 with advice related to employment and discrimination issues. 91% of clients felt their situation had improved and 100% were satisfied with the service they had received.

Partnerships

Partnerships are fundamental to our work in Wales, enabling us to reach out to marginalised people through our trusted community networks. Working with partners increases awareness of the value of advice and supports referrals both to and from our network of local Citizens Advice offices.

Our partners value the accessibility and speed of our Wales-wide referral system.

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[I’m] ‘Amazed at how speedy the referral was. The client had just left the office and was on the bus home when they got a call back from Citizens Advice.’

‘Referral system is really useful, especially being 24 hours. Many of our services operate outside of traditional hours, especially working with young people and mothers outside of school hours. This means we can make referrals at any time which is really convenient.’

Working in this way helps us to take a more preventative approach: 75% of clients supported by Advicelink Cymru were advised at an early stage. A further 20% were advised before a crisis.

Each partner brings their own expertise and reach into a community of interest or place. Delivering quality-assured social welfare advice with wraparound support from partners―be it practical, emotional, clinical or social―provides a more holistic package. This matters because clients are increasingly seeking help with complex, interrelated problems.

This year saw a growth in our partnership working across Wales, with more partners signed up to our central online e-referral system. Over 55 partners actively made over 3,900 referrals, bringing the total number of e-referrals since the project’s inception in 2020 to over 18,500. Many more e-referrals are made through longstanding local referral portals, offering people a range of ways of accessing our services.

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~~Advocacy~~

We’ve been working to ensure that the cost of living remains a top priority for policymakers in England and Wales. To do this, we created a new framework for policymakers to understand and measure living standards through negative budgets.

Negative budgets are our key cost-of-living measure ―they tell us how many of the people we help with debt issues can’t afford their essential costs, and how big their monthly budget shortfall is.

We developed this work further when we launched our National Red Index, a tool that combines our frontline debt advice data with national survey data. This allows us to measure the scale and depth of negative budgets across Britain for the first time. The National Red Index can evaluate the impact of different policies on household budgets―showing policymakers what changes would be most effective in lifting people back into a positive budget.

We’ve shared our analysis with stakeholders, including several government departments, helping

them understand how they can use the National Red Index in their work to address cost-of-living pressures. The National Red Index has also become a new data tool for national and local Citizens Advice colleagues, allowing us to speak not only about what we’re seeing on the frontline, but what the picture looks like on a national scale.

Energy

A major factor pushing people into negative budgets is the ongoing affordability crisis in the energy sector. This has continued to be the main issue facing energy consumers this year.

Although prices started to fall from their peak in mid-2023, the removal of key government support schemes has meant that people have continued to face prices around 50% higher than before the crisis began. Addressing the energy affordability crisis remains a key focus of our work.

Advocacy spotlight

Addressing the ongoing energy affordability crisis and rising debt levels

Prepayment meters (PPMs) made headlines last year, with landmark Citizens Advice reports highlighting the heartbreaking numbers of people who couldn’t afford to top up their meter. This led to a temporary moratorium on forcefit prepayment meter installations and work to improve protections going forward.

We’ve used our evidence and influence to shape the development of those protections. This led to the introduction of new rules on prepayment meters in November 2023.

In 2024, we’ve continued to use our research to highlight the experience of prepay customers, alongside the need for more affordability support overall.

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Prepayment meters – 2023 to 2024 timeline

2023 2024

~~March~~

We responded to Ofgem’s call for evidence on what new protections for prepayment customers should look like and called for the moratorium to be extended. Ofgem extended their moratorium on prepayment protections

~~June~~

Ofgem published a statutory

consultation on their proposed new prepayment rules. Their impact assessment that accompanied the consultation projected that the new rules would likely result in nationwide economic benefits of approximately £676m, achieved through a 4% reduction in excess winter deaths

~~July~~

We responded to the statutory consultation, arguing for greater protections for vulnerable households in the draft rules―including a wider set of consumers for whom prepayment is not appropriate

~~January~~

The first suppliers met the threshold to begin forcibly installing PPMs. We began monitoring PPM installation cases, and referring any poor practice on for further investigation. Our Shock Proof report estimated that over 2 million energy customers would have disconnected by the end of winter 2023 because they couldn’t afford to top up their PPMs

~~September~~

Ofgem announced that the new rules for prepayment installations had been finalised and would come into effect from 8 November 2023. Suppliers will now have to review their PPM cases on an annual basis. They must not install a PPM for customers with a baby in the home, a resident who is aged 75 or over or who has specific medical conditions

~~November~~ The new rules on PPMs came into effect in the licence conditions

~~April~~

Ofgem announced that the first wave of compensation to consumers affected by inappropriate PPM installations had been paid, and that 150,000 installations had already been reviewed by energy suppliers

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Post

Last autumn was a significant time for our advocacy work on post and accessibility. We first drew attention to the fact that parcel deliveries don’t work well for disabled people back in 2018. In 2019 we published a report on the ways in which disabled consumers should be able to better specify their needs.

After 5 years of Citizens Advice highlighting the issue, in November 2023 Ofcom finally introduced new consumer protections for disabled people in the parcels market. Around the same time, we published our third annual parcels league table, and we will continue to monitor the impact of these new protections over the coming year.

We’re the statutory consumer watchdog for the postal service. We’ve continued to work with Ofcom and Royal Mail to advance consumer priorities around affordability and reliability.

We highlighted the ongoing issue of Royal Mail letter delays in media work during summer 2023. And we engaged with Ofcom on their review of the Universal Service Obligation, publishing our suggestions in the autumn. We also saw success in

our work around retaining the 2nd class price cap, with Ofcom announcing in January 2024 that this will now be retained until 2027.

Consumer

With the cost of living continuing to put pressure on household bills, we’ve focused on showing the effect this is having. On people’s ability to cover their essential bills and to access markets that provide basic services needed for day-to-day life. Our research found that in the year to August 2023, 4 million people were priced out of broadband, mobile or insurance markets.

We found that over 1 million households had had to cancel essential car insurance due to rising bills, with 89% of those who had cancelled finding it much harder to carry out daily tasks as a result.

We’ve used our research to highlight the need for a stronger system of bill support and to draw attention to the problems with the current system of social tariffs for energy, water and broadband. We have also continued to draw attention to our worrying research finding that people of colour are paying on average £250 more for their car

insurance. We raised this when giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee.

This year has been an important one for crosscutting consumer rights, with the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill passing through Parliament. We’ve continued to highlight how the design of sales processes, especially online, can lead to consumers being out of pocket.

In July 2023 we published our report Pushed to Purchase: Counting the cost of deceptive digital design in e-commerce, which explored the cost to consumers of poor design of consumer journeys. It found that, due to the design of an app or website, 1 in 6 consumers had bought something they didn’t want or need, or later regretted purchasing.

It also emphasised the role of drip-pricing (where fees are added on towards the end of the sales process), reiterated our earlier calls to have this practice banned and for further action on subscription traps. Both of these topics were included in the final DMCC Act, which became law in May 2024 and will mean greater protection for consumers in these markets.

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Given the extreme pressure on household finances caused by high inflation, we have continued to highlight the need for regulators to crack down on poor practices affecting consumers. This has included our work focusing on above-inflation price rises being included with mobile and broadband contracts.

Our report Dialling up prices: Why mobile and broadband consumers need better protections from unfair pricing practices identified that £1.4 billion was set to be added to consumer bills as a result of another round of price hikes in 2024. Crucially, we showed that most people didn’t understand the terms of the contracts they were signing up to and we called for changes to be made to this practice. In December 2023, Ofcom announced that it intended to ban the practice of mobile and broadband providers including inflation-linked price rises in their contracts.

“I feel a lot better about everything now that Sara, my adviser at Citizens Advice, has helped me along. I just don’t feel that pressure anymore. I also feel more confident about how to deal with situations like this in the future. And if I get stuck again, I know I can go back to Citizens Advice for help.” Malcolm, East Suffolk

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Moving forward, transformation Our priorities for 2024 to 2025

The 2024 to 2025 business plan marks a shift towards a new missions based approach. Our priorities include developing and implementing our strategy, foundational work to make our advice fit for the future, and to close the gap in disparities and prevent destitution. Our business plan also identifies other key work streams that will enable our missions.

Citizens Advice national business plan 2024 to 2025

Developing and implementing our strategy

We will:

agree areas of shared focus with local Citizens Advice

establish joint ways of working, including how to measure progress

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Mission 1: Provide advice fit for the future

We’ll be there for people when they need us in the ways that help make the biggest impact. We need to keep our advice offer relevant, far-reaching and effective, and evolve our service offer to keep pace with people’s developing needs―making use of new technologies.

In 2024 to 2025, we will:

redesign our membership support offer and funded services approach

support local Citizens Advice to adapt their volunteering models

improve client experience through use of technology, such as AI

Mission 2: Close the gap

We know that marginalised communities face greater difficulty accessing our advice and they sometimes have a poorer experience when they do. For example, in 2023 to 2024, Asian or Asian British clients (63%), Black or Black British clients (69%), mixed and other clients (65%) were less positive about how easy they found it to access the service compared to White clients (75%). We need to work harder to reach the people who need us most, prioritise the needs of marginalised people, and challenge disparities.

In 2024 to 2025, we will:

deliver research on racial disparities and develop a Race Matters action plan

develop a roadmap to improve access for disabled clients

Mission 3: Take early action

Over the last few years, we have seen a dramatic rise in the number of people seeking crisis support from our service. We’ll prevent more people from reaching crisis by addressing problems earlier and tackling the root cause of issues, creating change to prevent future problems and inequalities. We will do this both in how we provide advice and advocate for change.

In 2024 to 2025, we will:

engage stakeholders to influence election manifestos and a new government's first 100 days, with a strong focus on negative budgets

work with the Trussell Trust to design a pre-crisis support offer, to prevent people from entering destitution

develop and launch a new framework to embed lived experience into our work

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Enablers that will help us deliver Operating model design on our ambitions and delivery

1. Financial sustainability We will agree and embed a new Target Operating 2. Digital Model―clearly defining the role of the national 3. Working with others organisation and making sure we are designed to be 4. People and culture fit for our future.

5. Trusted brand

Refresh our governance system ―by creating a clearer decision-making framework, strengthening our board and executive committee structures, and updating key governance documents, policies and procedures

Review our support to local offices

In 2024 to 2025, we will:

We will lead a transformation programme to commission the work necessary to address our need to change, starting with:

Streamline our structure ―review directorate and team design to ensure we are focused and effective in our work

reviewing the role and design of our national organisation

organisation Strengthen our leadership and culture ―further define our leadership, behaviours and strengthening our leadership and culture ways of working. Ensure we’re aligned with our capabilities values and that leaders are equipped with the skills to foster a strong workplace culture agreeing and implementing our funding strategy Enhance our capabilities and end-to-end continuing to plan for our long-term financial processes ―map and invest in the right skills sustainability and expertise to deliver our service ambitions and make sure our ways of working are efficient and effective

In 2024 to 2025, we will:

Redesign our membership support offer ―based on what we’re hearing from the network, create a more sustainable support model and an up-to-date membership agreement, membership fee and charging structure

Deliver a new future for funded services ―deliver a new operating model to test new ways to bring together, deliver and continuously improve nationally-led funded service delivery, to achieve greater alignment with our strategy, value for money and competitiveness

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Products, Platforms and Technology

Over the past 5 years, we’ve modernised the core platforms that underpin our advice services and advocacy work. These include our content platform, case management tools, data platform, and phone platform. This investment and effort have provided us with the foundations to innovate and to support rapidly-evolving client needs.

As part of our local support offer programme, we’re reviewing what our local offices most need to effectively run their advice services. We are also looking at how we can meet those needs in the most cost-effective way.

We will take better advantage of new technologies offered through our remote advice platform, Connect, to enable advisers to deliver advice more efficiently. For instance, onboarding webchat and exploring the potential of new messaging capabilities such as email and WhatsApp.

We will work towards our ambition of becoming market competitive in our provision of digital self service and remote advice delivery. And we will constantly innovate and experiment with technology.

As part of the organisation’s mission to close the access and experience gap, we’ll begin research to understand how we can further expand the reach of our advice to minoritised communities, including through new channels and partnering with other organisations.

In 2024 to 2025, we will:

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Strategic Report

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Our structure, governance and management, including volunteers

Our trustee board provides strategic direction and guidance to national Citizens Advice and has oversight of its financial and operational affairs. The 12 board members are trustees under charity law and directors of the charitable company.[*]

The trustee board held 6 formal meetings in 2023 to 2024. It also meets as necessary to discuss other business and to attend informational sessions. This helps our trustees to shape the organisation’s strategy, learn more about particular areas of work and develop further as a team. Our Chief Executive and executive team deliver our strategy and ensure the smooth day-to-day running of the organisation.

During 2023 to 2024, we started a programme of work to modernise our governance systems. In 2024 to 2025, we will implement a restructured set of board committees. We will refresh terms of reference, update our Articles of Association, and improve the internal governance systems and procedures that support our organisation’s decision making.

Our trustees

―in order of their appointment date

Will Cavendish (until 21 August 2023) is Arup's Global Head of Digital Services and Leader of the London-based Advanced Digital Engineering Group. Previously, he was Applied Strategy Lead at DeepMind, served as a World Bank economist, and lectured at Oxford University and Imperial College. He has a doctorate in economics and was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 2015. Will was Chair of our technology committee and a member of our chairs’ committee.

Ann-Marie Harkin (until 27 February 2024) is the Executive Director for Audit Services at Audit Wales. She has won both the Leading Wales 'Women in

Leadership' award and the CIPFA Wales 'Public Finance Professional of the Year' award. Ann-Marie was Chair of our Cymru advisory committee, Acting Chair of its meeting held on 15 May 2024, and a member of our audit and risk committee and chairs’ committee.

Jonathan Mogford (until 24 July 2024) brings an insight from the Citizens Advice local network, as he is Vice-Chair at Citizens Advice Wandsworth. His civil service career includes 25 years of healthcare and life sciences policy experience, 10 years of which were at MHRA. Jonathan is Chair of our equality committee and was a member of our chairs’ committee.

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Lucinda Bell (Treasurer, second term will end

October 2024) is currently a non-executive director of Derwent London and Man Group. She was also a nonexecutive director of Crest Nicholson until December 2023. She is Chair of the audit and risk committee at Man Group and Chair of the audit committee at Derwent London. Lucinda is Chair of our audit and risk committee, a member of our people committee, and was a member of our chairs’ committee. She was joint Acting Chair of our nominations committee from October 2023 to February 2024.

Warren Buckley (Chair until 16 November 2023) retired from his role as Retail Director at Thames Water in January 2023. Previously, he was Global Head of Contact Centres for HSBC Plc and held positions at BT, Openreach, Orange, Avaya, Lucent Technologies and Vodafone. Before standing down from his role as a trustee and Chair of our trustee board at our 2023 AGM, Warren was Chair of our chairs’ committee.

Finola McDonnell joined the Financial Times in 2018 as Chief Communications and Marketing Officer. Finola is a member of the FT Group executive board and oversees global communications, brand management, commercial marketing, partnerships and events. Previously, she worked for US news

outlet CNBC, as Vice President of international communications and marketing. Finola is a member of our technology committee and, from October 2023, our nominations committee.

Jabbar Sardar (Deputy Chair until September 2024) is Global HR director for BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC which oversees TV production, channels and distribution globally. Jabbar is a member of our nominations committee and was a member of our chairs' committee. He was also Chair of our nominations committee until our new trustee board Chair, Matthew Swindells, joined Citizens Advice. Jabbar took a leave of absence from our trustee board in October 2023 and resigned in September 2024.

Steve Hughes is Assistant Director of Strategy & Performance at Oldham Council. He leads the council's policy, performance and data functions, and oversees the data and digital transformation programme. Steve has 12 years of experience in both Chief Officer and Chair roles within the Citizens Advice network and has been a cabinet member in local government. He has held senior non-executive positions in housing and education establishments and is an avid advocate for HIV awareness. Steve is a member of our equality committee and people committee.

Bevis Watts is the Chief Executive of Triodos Bank UK Ltd. Bevis has spent his whole career working in sustainability in the public, private and voluntary sectors. He was previously Head of Business Support at WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) and CEO of Avon Wildlife Trust. Bevis is a member of our audit and risk committee and was joint Acting Chair of our nominations committee from October 2023 to February 2024.

Janine La Rosa is the Chief People Officer at a large London hospital. Prior to this, Janine held a key role in London’s Covid response, working to help close the equity gap in vaccine screening. She previously worked delivering high-value infrastructure and transformation programmes, both in the UK and overseas.

Mark Allen retired from Cancer Research UK in 2021, having spent 5 years as Executive Director for HR. Mark has been a trustee and Chair of several final salary pension schemes and Deputy Chair of governors for a large FE college. He is currently a trustee of AQA, the examinations organisation. Mark is Chair of our people committee, a member of our nominations committee and was a member of our chairs’ committee.

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Sarah Wilson (Acting Chair from 16 November 2023 until 28 February 2024 and Acting Deputy Chair from 1 March 2024 until the present day). Sarah was Chair of The Barnes Fund, a local trust that provides funding to local charities including Citizens Advice Richmond and sheltered housing. She sits on the Advisory Board of Oxfam’s Enterprise Development Programme and has held non-executive positions in further and higher education. She was a senior executive at both the Financial Services Authority and Voluntary Service Overseas. Sarah is a member of our audit and risk committee.

Dr Roxane Heaton (from October 2023) is the Chief Information Officer of Macmillan Cancer Support. She has also held a range of public and private sector roles including Director of Digital and Innovation for Morrisons Supermarket. She has won several technology and digital national awards and in 2022 received a British Empire Medal for Services to Digital Technology during Covid. Roxane is Chair of our technology committee.

Matthew Swindells (Chair from 1 March 2024) is Chair of the Board for the 4 acute hospitals that make up the North West London Acute Provider Collaborative. He runs his own consultancy, MJS Healthcare Consulting, through which he provides strategic advice on digital transformation and

global healthcare to a small number of innovative companies. He has spent his entire career in healthcare, most recently as Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer for the NHS in England. Matthew has become Chair of our nominations committee.

Frank Hont (from May 2024) is chair of trustees at Citizens Advice Liverpool and has been a senior manager in the private and public sectors. From 2002 to 2012, he was Regional Secretary for UNISON, the public sector trade union. Frank was a member of the government Commission on Integration and Cohesion and received an MBE in 2008 for services to community cohesion. He has been a member of the Liverpool Fairness Commission and also served as a City Councillor in Liverpool. He has been involved in the city-wide anti-poverty task group for 15 years.

Lewis Brencher (from June 2024) is Vice Chair of Citizens Advice Rhondda Cynon Taff and Executive Director of Communications and Engagement at Transport for Wales. He has been a Trustee of CARCT for 9 years. Lewis has become Chair of the Cymru advisory committee which is key in helping shape the work of Citizens Advice Cymru and supporting the work of the local offices.

Deborah Harris-Ugbomah FCA (Treasurer from October 2024) is a chartered accountant, auditing financial services before moving into investment banking and venture capital. She has extensive executive and Non-Executive Director experience in financial services, public sector including NHS, and non-profits. Since January 2022, she has served as an independent member, Chair and Trustee of various committees and organisations. Deborah is an ICAEW elected member of Council, a membership body for the accountancy profession where she is the first black person in 152 years to be successfully elected as President of the London ICAEW chartered accountants.

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Trustee committees

The following committees supported the trustee board in its work over the past year:

Audit and risk committee

Advises the trustee board on risk management, internal controls, internal and external audit and financial reporting. This committee is constituted to contain 3 independent co-opted members.

Chairs’ committee

A sounding board for the Chair of the trustee board, through planning the board’s agendas, and shaping and agreeing the board’s business. Our chairs’ committee has been disbanded―its last meeting was on 4 September 2023.

Cymru advisory committee

Advises the trustee board on matters relating to Welsh policy, public affairs, EDI, strategic development and business planning. It also has a brief to assure the board that we are meeting our duties under current Welsh language legislation. This committee is constituted to contain 2 members from the local Citizens Advice network in Wales and 4 independent members with expertise in Welsh language, EDI and/or devolved policy matters.

Equality committee

Provides expertise and guidance on EDI to the trustee board in relation to our network, national Citizens Advice colleagues, and Witness Service volunteers and colleagues. Makes sure that promoting equity and tackling the discrimination experienced by our clients is at the heart of our advice and policy work. This committee is constituted to contain 2 members that represent the local Citizens Advice network and 3 independent co-opted members.

Nominations committee

On behalf of the trustee board, leads the process for trustee board appointments. Ensures plans are in place for orderly succession to trustee board and committee positions and oversees the development of a diverse pipeline for succession. Is responsible for the trustee board having the knowledge and skills it needs to lead Citizens Advice. This committee is made up of 4 members of our trustee board, one of whom is the Chair, and our Chief Executive.

People committee

Supports the trustee board through its oversight of the national Citizens Advice people strategy, which includes inclusive employer priorities. Is responsible for ensuring that our people policies and practices are consistent with our organisational behaviours and culture. Monitors and provides feedback on our pay and reward strategy and advises the Chair about the appointment, appraisal and pay of our Chief Executive and executive directors.

This committee is constituted to contain 3 trustee board members and also contains 2 independent co-opted members.

Technology committee

Helps to shape and monitor the technology strategy and provides feedback and guidance about technology matters affecting the national organisation and network. This committee is constituted to contain 1 member that represents the local Citizens Advice network and 2 independent co-opted members.

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Our trustees’ dates of appointment and committee involvement during 2023 to 2024

----- Start of picture text -----
Trustee Appointed Audit and Chairs' Cymru Equality Nominations People Technology
risk advisory
22 Aug ― ― ― ― ―
Will Cavendish
2017
Ann-Marie Harkin 28 Feb ― ― ― ―
2018
25 Jul ― ― ― ― ―
Jonathan Mogford
2018
Lucinda Bell 11 Oct ― ― ―
2018
Warren Buckley 11 Oct ― ― ― ― ― ―
2018
Finola McDonnell 31 Mar ― ― ― ― ―
2020
29 Apr ― ― ― ― ―
Jabbar Sardar
2020
23 Jun ― ― ― ― ―
Steve Hughes
2022
Bevis Watts 1 Nov ― ― ― ― ―
2022
Janine La Rosa 1 Nov ― ― ― ― ― ― ―
2022
Mark Allen 1 Nov ― ― ― ―
2022
Sarah Wilson 1 Nov ― ― ― ― ― ―
2022
Roxane Heaton 31 Oct ― ― ― ― ― ―
2023
Matthew Swindells 1 Mar ― ― ― ― ― ―
2024
----- End of picture text -----

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Independent committee members 2023 to 2024

As we knew that we would be refreshing and restructuring our trustee board committees in the 2024 to 2025 year, we did not try to fill some of the vacancies on our committees. In 2024 to 2025, all of our committees will be operating under new terms of reference and some will cease to exist, as their work will form part of a new committee.

----- Start of picture text -----
Local Citizens Advice
External members as per
members as per the Notes on membership and vacancies
the terms of reference
terms of reference
Audit and risk 3 0 The second term of 2 external members ended on
28 March 2023 and those roles have not been filled.
The remaining external member stepped down on
2 October 2023.
Cymru advisory 4 2 1 external member was appointed on 14 December 2023,
replacing someone who stepped down after their second
term.
1 of our 2 local Citizens Advice members was seconded to
national Citizens Advice on 9 August 2023 and will return to
the committee in August 2024.
Equality 3 2 1 local Citizens Advice member stepped down on
30 January 2024 and that role has been vacant since then.
1 external member stepped down on 10 July 2024.
People 0 0 Although not set out in the terms of reference, 2 external
members served on the committee throughout 2023
to 2024.
Technology 2 1 The local Citizens Advice member role has been vacant
throughout the 2023 to 2024 year.
----- End of picture text -----

Recruitment, induction and training of national trustees and committee members

We always seek to ensure that our recruitment processes are open and equitable. As with previous years, in 2023 to 2024 we worked with an external recruitment agency to find our new trustee board members. We looked for people with the right knowledge and skills to lead our service, whilst ensuring that our trustee board remains reflective of the communities we serve. These roles were advertised in national media and with our network.

Our trustees can serve 2 consecutive terms of 3 years, but they must then leave our trustee board. A trustee who holds office as our Chair, Deputy Chair or Treasurer is not allowed to remain in that role for more than 6 consecutive years. After serving 6 years as either Deputy Chair or Treasurer, a trustee can be appointed to the role of Chair. Regardless of their role/s, no member of our trustee board can hold office for more than 12 consecutive years. At the end of this period, another 2 years must pass before any former trustee can be re-appointed.

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During 2023 to 2024, we recruited 2 new trustees. The first of these was a standard trustee board member who also became the Chair of our technology committee. The second was a new Chair of our trustee board and our members approved that appointment at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on 5 February 2024. Our new Chair started his official role on 1 March 2024, which allowed time for an induction.

All new members of our trustee board and committees receive an induction to Citizens Advice that includes information about their role, our service and its governance. As part of this induction, we arrange meetings between each new member and the trustee board Chair, fellow trustee board and/ or committee members, and key colleagues, as appropriate. Our trustees and committee members are unpaid volunteers but we reimburse them for reasonable expenses, which this year totalled £4,586.

Section 172 (1) statement

All charitable companies have a duty to act in accordance with Section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 (“Duty to promote the success of the company”).

The trustees consider they have complied with their duties when reviewing the aims and objectives of Citizens Advice, in planning activities and setting policies and priorities for the year ahead. Our charitable objects are to:

promote any charitable purpose for the advancement of education, the protection and preservation of health, and the relief of poverty, sickness and distress

ensure in carrying out its objects and in all aspects of its work, Citizens Advice is committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, preventing prejudice and discrimination, ensuring equal access and promoting good relations between all sections of the community

The main activities undertaken to further our

charitable purposes for public benefit are to provide the advice people need for the problems they face and to improve the policies and practices that affect people’s lives.

The trustees act in good faith to make decisions, working towards outcomes which they consider will be most likely to promote the success of the charity. This is done for the benefit of its charitable purposes as a whole, both in current periods and in the long term.

In discharging their duties, the trustees consider the impact on the interests of clients to be of paramount importance also taking into account our volunteers and colleagues. They also consider the need to foster the organisation's business relationship with suppliers and funders, whilst always retaining our independence and impartiality, and factor all of this into their decision-making process. Examples of key decisions taken this financial year include:

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Setting the organisation's strategy, missions and enablers

The trustees kept clients at the heart of their decision making throughout an extensive cocreation process across the Citizens Advice network. This arrived at an ambitious strategy that made extensive use of data to develop and agree clear missions and enablers. These will maximise Citizens Advice's impact in pursuit of our purpose and charitable objects.

Approval of the business plan 2024 to 2025

Trustees provided extensive challenge and support in the setting of the annual business plan, including our influencing and advocacy priorities. This ensured that the final plan set out a limited number of clearly-defined strategic priorities which would be supported by more detailed implementation and departmental plans. This work was done with due regard to funder requirements, relationships and resources, whilst retaining our impartiality, and is being monitored through performance reporting.

Approval of the budget 2024 to 2025

Trustees provided extensive support and challenge to agree a budget for 2024 to 2025 which balanced the need for investment in key capabilities with

ongoing financial sustainability pressures. The budget takes into account the impact on clients, as well as funder requirements, colleague experience and the resourcing of change.

Approving national safeguarding policies and procedures

Trustees ensured that the annual review of our safeguarding policies and procedures was conducted collaboratively. The amendments agreed were informed by the learning identified by a dedicated Safeguarding Working Group. This aimed to improve awareness and create a more coherent approach to safeguarding through our suite of policies and procedures.

Brand awareness campaign approval

Trustees agreed a new brand identity for Citizens Advice, ensuring that the approach was built through consultation with local offices, national colleagues and clients. Trustees balanced the need to increase brand awareness and convert awareness to engagement with the potential unintended consequences of driving demand. They also ensured that the campaign was rooted in our strategic desire to reduce the gap in access and experience of minoritised communities.

Agreeing to consult on the redesign of the local support offer

Trustees agreed the principles of a wholeservice consultation on the role of the national organisation in providing support to local offices, in line with the Membership Agreement. This is a fundamental aspect of the national organisation’s operating model. When deciding how to engage in this redesign, trustees took account of clients’ needs (including for accessible advice) in designing proposals intended to allow for a thriving local office network, as well as the financial sustainability of the national organisation. Trustees provided extensive support and challenge on matters of risk appetite, consultation approach, network sustainability, funder requirements and equity impacts. This enabled the organisation to arrive at an agreed model on which consultation could begin in 2024 to 2025.

Clients

The needs of our clients are central to our strategy, business plan and reporting. Our trustees recognise the significant impact that the cost of living crisis, steep rises to energy bills and inflation have had on our clients’ finances and wellbeing.

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Our trustees oversee our internal living strategy which takes a missions-based approach to meeting our clients’ needs. It seeks to provide advice that’s fit for the future, close the gap of access and experience for marginalised people, and act early to prevent people from reaching crisis point.

In addition to our annual impact report, our trustees receive regular updates and resources about our clients’ needs, evidenced by our data. Each month, our data team updates our cost-of-living dashboard which analyses our client data by both theme and demographic. It also holds a monthly public event where experts from our own network and other third sector organisations discuss our latest client data and share their insights.

Our trustee board and a number of our committees have included at least one member from our network, which is one way we ensure that the needs of our clients are more directly represented across their work.

Volunteers and colleagues

Trustees receive anonymised information on colleagues’ physical and mental wellbeing and are committed to promoting a healthy workforce. They support our ongoing work to build an inclusive culture and are committed to attracting and

retaining diverse, high-calibre talent which volunteer and colleague development helps support. Senior leaders engage with colleagues to receive their opinions on key organisational developments, change and decisions through a number of mechanisms. These include all-colleague town halls, colleague conference, directorate meetings, our colleague community platform Workplace and colleague surveys.

Funders

Our trustees closely monitor our relationships with our funders and receive regular reports on how we are meeting funder requirements. The ‘Our value to society’ section of this report explains how our services deliver a high value-for-money return for our funders.

Suppliers

The charity has established procedures to make sure that external suppliers are individually verified to ensure they meet with the health and safety, regulatory and financial security standards required by the charity. Day to day, this function is overseen by the executive and trustees are responsible for reviewing the policy. This is in the context of how our service runs, how we work with local Citizens Advice and other organisations, as well as our external suppliers.

Community and the environment

Our trustees aim to limit the impact of our organisation’s actions on the environment throughout our work and have measures in place to do so. Our facilities team closely monitors and works to minimise the carbon emissions arising from our 4 offices and colleagues’ travel, and ensures that we comply with regulatory environmental standards.

Our sustainable travel policy encourages colleagues to use technology to meet remotely instead of travelling to other locations, and to use public transport when travel is needed. We promote sustainable commuting by providing cycling facilities and season ticket loans. It is extremely rare that any of our volunteers or colleagues need to use air travel in the course of their work. The ‘energy disclosures’ section outlines our carbon strategy and office energy use.

Standards and conduct

Our trustees are committed to high standards of corporate governance and comply with the principles and practices set out in the Charity Governance Code. We have many policies in place to ensure that our volunteers and colleagues act ethically in the conduct of our business.

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All trustee board and committee members sign a code of conduct when they are appointed and declare any new conflicts of interest at the start of every trustee board and committee meeting. All national Citizens Advice colleagues are expected to follow the organisation’s policies regarding EDI, safeguarding, IT, privacy, data retention, health and safety, political impartiality, and social media use. National Citizens Advice colleagues are also required to complete mandatory training on cyber security, EDI and safeguarding in our online learning platform, Skillbook.

In 2023 to 2024, we implemented many of the recommendations from the external board effectiveness review that took place during the previous year. We also began a full internal review of our governance that will further enhance our board and committee operations.

Public Benefit

The Trustees have due regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit when reviewing the aims, strategy and in planning future activities of the charity.

Statement of trustees’ responsibilities

The trustees are also the directors of the charity for the purposes of company law. They are responsible for preparing the trustees’ report (including the strategic report) and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Company law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). Under company law, the trustees must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the group, charity, incoming resources and application of resources, including income and expenditure, of the group for that period.

In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently

observe the methods and principles in the applicable Charities SORP

make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent

state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements

prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in business

The trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the charity’s transactions. These must disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enable the trustees to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

Financial statements are published on the charity’s website in accordance with legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and

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dissemination of financial statements, which may vary from legislation in other jurisdictions. The maintenance and integrity of the charity’s website is the responsibility of the trustees. The trustees’ responsibility also extends to the ongoing integrity of the financial statements contained therein.

So far as each of the trustees at the time this report is approved are aware:

there is no relevant audit information of which the auditor is unaware

they have taken all the steps they ought to have taken to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditor is aware of that information

Delegation of duties

Our scheme of delegation outlines decision-making responsibilities within national Citizens Advice. It lists issues reserved for the trustee board and areas which may be delegated to the executive team. The standing financial instructions form the basis of the delegation of financial functions by the Citizens Advice trustee board to colleagues.

Our commercial and contracting policy sets out authority levels for purchasing decisions. We have committed to reviewing our scheme of delegation in 2024 to 2025.

Executive team

Our executive team is responsible for delivering the trustee board’s vision and for the day-to-day operation of Citizens Advice. The following executive directors served during the reporting period:

Chief Executive

Dame Clare Moriarty

Interim Executive Director for Digital Technology

and Advice

Alex Butler (from 19 April 2023)

Executive Director of People

Angela Buxton

Interim Executive Director of Finance and Commercial

Jameela Khan (from 15 February 2024)

Executive Director of Finance and Commercial

Karen Bass (until 14 February 2024)

Acting Executive Director of Policy and Advocacy Matt Upton (until 12 December 2023)

Executive Director of Operations

Michele Shambrook

Executive Director of Strategy and Transformation Tracey Waltho

Our people

Our service is run by committed and passionate volunteers and colleagues who work hard together to achieve so much for our clients. As the national organisation, we strive to improve all aspects of employee experience to ensure we are a brilliant place to work and volunteer.

We have recently focused efforts on improving our recruitment, onboarding and induction experience and have invested in a strong wellbeing and family friendly offer for colleagues. We are also very proud of the work we have delivered around EDI, most notably our Race Matters programme of work.

We are embarking on a significant transformation programme which is aimed at redesigning the

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organisation to better deliver on our strategic missions. This will involve a considerable focus on cultural development, morale building, leadership development and healthy working.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace. We aim to create an efficient, effective, fair and equitable recruitment journey and employee experience that welcomes and supports candidates and colleagues from all backgrounds. We believe that equity and accessibility are fundamental to creating an environment where every individual can thrive.

Our organisational approaches and processes are supported by our recruitment and selection, equity and diversity, disability and accessibility policies.

We actively promote our commitment to equity and the Disability Confident employer scheme in our recruitment processes. We do this by ensuring that all job adverts emphasise our dedication to providing a supportive and inclusive environment for disabled colleagues. We take a reasonable approach to each applicant, ensuring that potential candidates know that adjustments can be made throughout the recruitment process to meet their specific needs. Talent Acquisition Partners work

closely with managers to ensure that action is taken to support individual candidates through the entire recruitment process.

Once candidates join the organisation, we

prioritise assessing and implementing reasonable adjustments to create a welcoming and enabling environment from day one.

Before a new team member begins their role, managers work with them to identify individual development needs and any support to put in place. Our quarterly performance development reviews are designed to continue this support, with discussions around individual development needs. If additional support or adjustments are required prior to training and development activities, these are taken forward. Where we are working with a third party, we work with them to ensure equitable opportunities for all colleagues.

By embedding these inclusive practices in our culture, we are committed to enabling everyone to reach their full potential.

Wellbeing

In 2023 our wellbeing function moved into the equity and culture team, reflecting these areas’

interconnectedness and their crucial role in organisational health and effectiveness. With challenges to people’s wellbeing coming from world and national events, as well as (for some people) from organisational change and uncertainty, wellbeing has remained firmly on our agenda.

Like many organisations, we have experienced colleagues reporting higher challenges with mental health-related issues and this is showing up in our absence data. Over the last 12 months, the average number of days lost to sickness was 6.5 days. Mental health is the largest reason cited across this absence. In the period July 2023 to June 2024, there were 2,275 days lost to mental health-related absence, taken by 8.6% of colleagues. Whilst this is lower than some of the industry averages in our benchmarking data, we are keen to tackle any work-related contributors to mental health issues.

In 2023 to 2024, we:

developed our emerging culture work to positively impact drivers of workplace wellbeing, and aligned our equity, culture and wellbeing teams and ways of working to complement and support one another

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continued to develop our Mental Health First Aid team’s knowledge and skills by providing regular continuing professional development (CPD) and networking opportunities

co-developed and hosted a third sector Workplace Wellbeing Community of Practice, developing links and sharing good practice sector-wide

In 2024 to 2025, we'll focus on:

improving our ability to access, report on and use wellbeing-related data for decision-making

Equity, diversity and inclusion

We know we cannot meet the needs of our clients without an equitable, diverse and inclusive workplace culture at all levels of the organisation. This will not only mean Citizens Advice is a great place to work for all, but also that we collectively understand our clients better.

We’re proud of the workforce diversity we have and will continue to better reflect the communities that we exist to help, particularly those who are marginalised. Diversity amongst our workforce will

help us do better at scrutinising and challenging behaviours. It will also ensure we build a culture that allows us to be the best we can be for the people who need us.

Our national team profile shows that 70.2% of colleagues are women and 27.3% men. We have had an increase in colleagues who are disabled, Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual, and people of colour. 28.2% of employees have identified themselves as being disabled or having a long-term health condition and 15.8% are people of colour. 16.1% are Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual. 2.5% of colleagues are Trans or Non-binary.

In 2023 to 2024, we:

continued our Race Matters work stream to address race disparities. This work has led to progress in an increase in representation of people of colour at the middle and top of the grade structure

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change for all involved, including progression and active allyship in challenging barriers. This programme was a partnership with Jenny Garret Global and Reflexion and was awarded 'Highly Commended' in the Training Initiative of the Year category at the British Training Awards (June 2024)

grew our network EDI community of practice, which discusses how local offices can make sure our services are accessible to everyone. It does this by focusing on a range of topics including race equity, engaging volunteers and colleagues with EDI work, and disability inclusion

feel equipped in meeting accessibility needs. It also ensures disabled colleagues feel supported and included in the workplace

supported the change process and developed an EDI impacts process for colleagues and clients. Feedback from stakeholders highlighted the importance of this work and it was often cited as an example of best practice

Our ambition is that Citizens Advice recruits, retains and enables marginalised people to thrive in the organisation and service-wide. We carefully consider equity in all of our work to achieve this, which has led to our EDI scores on the national Citizens Advice colleague engagement survey continuing to increase across all related questions. This is a sign that our ongoing work is having a positive impact.

However, we know that disparities still exist and we will continue to monitor the colleague engagement survey through an EDI lens. We’ve continued to support and strengthen our 4 colleague Equity Groups (REACH*, Disability, LGBTQ+, and Trans and non-binary). We have also started work to establish a new Women’s Equity Group and have seen the benefits of our executive sponsorship programme for Equity Group chairs.

In 2024 to 2025, we’ll continue to focus on

creating a culture of belonging in the organisation. This will include:

a specific focus on race and disability equity

developing revised workforce targets across the employee experience journey

working with the network to diversify volunteers and colleagues

continuing to increase our EDI capability

Whistleblowing

We continue to take proactive steps to foster a culture where colleagues feel safe to challenge things they think may be going wrong. Accepting that our practices and behaviours may be challenged and knowing that we are resilient in the face of those challenges ensures continuous learning and growth.

In addition to our existing whistleblowing policy, this year we began using a new reporting platform, Integrity Line. This gives people raising concerns the option of doing so anonymously, whilst still allowing them to enter into a dialogue with the case

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manager. The system also has a case management dashboard that enables case managers to track case progress and identify key themes, which provides a higher level of assurance for our trustees.

Remuneration policy

We evaluate all new roles using our industrystandard job evaluation scheme, allocating roles to grades. To attract the right talent, we benchmark against the mid-point between lower quartile and market median salaries. All national Citizens Advice employees are paid more than the Living Wage and, for those who live in the capital, the London Living Wage. Executive team remuneration is the responsibility of the trustee board’s people committee, which sets pay levels on the basis of job evaluation outcomes and comprehensive benchmarking.

The annual pay award was agreed with our recognised Trade Union, Unite, in June 2024 and is effective from 1 April 2024. This award consists of a combination of a 1% increase in pay and a £650 flat ― rate payment both are fully consolidated into pay up to the pay scale maximum. Any award that takes

a salary above the maximum of the pay scale has been paid as a non-consolidated, non-pensionable monthly allowance.

This award resulted in pay increases of between 1.8% and 3.7%, with higher percentage increases going to those on the lower salary grades. Additional non-consolidated payments of between £125 and £375 have been distributed across our Senior Officer, Officer and Support grades.

Safeguarding policies

The people committee has the responsibility of recommending the appropriate safeguarding policies and procedures to the trustee board for approval. Our safeguarding working group ensures the organisation takes safeguarding governance priorities into consideration. There are various safeguarding policies in place:

national (including Witness Service) safeguarding adults policy

national (including Witness Service) safeguarding children policy

national (including Witness Service volunteers and colleagues) safeguarding procedure

Witness Service safeguarding procedure

We have a model safeguarding policy for local Citizens Advice, and it's a membership requirement for them to have a suitable one in place. This is complemented by safeguarding guidance for local Citizens Advice that is available on our intranet.

We have recently commissioned a review to ensure our safeguarding practices comply with best practice, and we are implementing its recommendations.

Volunteers

This year, around 19,000 volunteers have helped people to find a way forward and have supported us to work towards a society where people face far fewer problems.[1] As well as giving advice and helping witnesses, volunteers have continued to support the service in other roles―as trustees and in research and campaigns, fundraising and administrative roles. Whatever their role

1 Number of volunteers between April 2023 and March 2024

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and wherever they carry it out, we thank all our volunteers for their dedication, skills, energy and support to the service. We couldn't do what we do without them.

In 2023 we commissioned the largest piece of research into volunteering at Citizens Advice for 10 years. The research, delivered by Sonnet and the Centre for Charity Effectiveness, found that volunteering at Citizens Advice generates value to a range of people and organisations. To local Citizens Advice offices, other key stakeholders (such as the NHS), the economy and volunteers themselves. This was worth at least £100 million in 2023 to 2024. This is a truly amazing impact and one that evidences the many ways in which volunteers bring value to our work.

The research showed that, as well as significantly enhancing our frontline capacity at a time of everincreasing demand, volunteers bring different backgrounds, skillsets and experiences into our work. They are local people supporting members of their community, shaping our services so that they best meet local needs. Our volunteers also help raise the profile of our service to extend its reach and improve our ability to support marginalised communities.

At the same time, recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of volunteers and ensuring our volunteer base is reflective of the communities we serve remains a challenge. Linked to this, we’ve seen a significant decline in our overall volunteer numbers in the past 5 years. This year, we’ve continued to work collaboratively with our Volunteering Transformation steering committee to better understand and address some of these challenges.

In 2024 to 2025, we will co-design and deliver an action plan based on the findings from the Value of Volunteering research. This will focus on driving up the volume and diversity of volunteer applications, alongside continuing work to adapt our volunteering models to better suit the needs of volunteers whilst supporting quality service delivery.

This year, we have also seen significant growth in our corporate volunteering programme, after introducing new skill-sharing programmes to complement our existing offer. In 2024 to 2025 we will continue to develop meaningful and impactful corporate volunteering programmes with our strategic corporate partners.

Our thanks go to all our volunteers and those who support them across the service, and particularly

those volunteers and colleagues involved in the steering committee and research project. We could not have achieved it without you.

Volunteering in the Witness Service

The Witness Service currently helps around 80,000 witnesses per year with the support of 1,500 active volunteers. To build our volunteer base to pre-pandemic numbers, the Witness Service will continue to focus on volunteer recruitment.

The new centralised Witness Service volunteering colleague model has now been in place for over 15 months. It consists of a Volunteering Manager, 3 Volunteering Co-ordinators and a Volunteering Administrator,. This has supported a consistent approach to recruitment and has also enabled us to focus on improving the volunteer experience in areas such as communication and recognition.

This year's annual volunteer survey has given us valuable insights into our volunteers and how we can improve their experience. Of those surveyed, 83% of volunteers would recommend us as a great place to volunteer and the main reason for their volunteering was ‘to make a difference to the lives of witnesses’.

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EDI continues to be a focus for the service―our volunteers are predominantly aged over 55 (86.5%), retired (68.8%) and white (92.7%). 67.6% of our volunteers are female. A centralised recruitment function is helping to work towards diversifying our recruitment methods and we have seen positive results from this approach. We now have a diversity statement on all of our adverts and have proactively removed barriers to recruitment from our processes to make it a more inclusive experience for our volunteers. This has resulted in an increase in applications from students and those from a global majority background.

Privacy strategy

Citizens Advice’s reputation is one of its most important assets. At the heart of that reputation is the trust that millions of people have put in our organisation when providing us with their personal information.

Our privacy strategy seeks to ensure that we uphold that trust by ensuring we handle data ethically and in accordance with the law. To help support this area of work, we have a Privacy Risk Management Board and an information governance team.

Citizens Advice aims to be an example of best privacy practice within the third sector.

Our privacy strategy sets out 6 high-level outcomes:

1. Policy and best practice will be embedded in the organisation

2. Clear roles and responsibilities for national Citizens Advice

3. A consistent and balanced approach to privacy risk

4. Privacy will be a visible part of Citizens Advice’s work

5. There will be clear responsibilities for local and national Citizens Advice

6. Our confidentiality promise will be central to our service

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Risk and internal controls

Citizens Advice believes effective risk management is key to successfully delivering our strategic priorities and achieving our missions.

Throughout the year, risk owners and managers regularly reviewed risks at team, project, directorate and strategic levels. These reviews assessed the likelihood, impact and risk appetite, the plans for mitigating the risks and the adequacy of those plans. Every quarter, our strategic risks are reviewed by the executive team, reported to the audit and risk committee and discussed by the trustee board.

We continue to raise the profile of risk management within the organisation. Our risk management policy is approved by the trustee board annually. It details our approach and internal control processes, including steps for identifying, evaluating, mitigating and monitoring risks. We use the 3 lines of defence model of assurance and operate a robust system of internal financial controls. This is regularly reviewed by management and internal auditors, and compliant with Charity Commission guidance and best practice. Over the year, the trustees have received assurances from management on the effective operation of controls.

Internal audit continues to be outsourced. Crowe have completed their first year in this role and an implementation review has identified some opportunities to further improve the impact of their work. Internal audit planning is informed by an analysis of the organisation's risk profile. The audit and risk committee receives quarterly reports on the recommendations our internal auditors make and monitors progress to completion and the overall performance of internal audit. Internal audits highlighted areas for development, most notably this year regarding organisational governance and cash flow forecasting. Improvements are already underway in both areas.

Our strategic risks are set out. They are accompanied by summaries of the plans to mitigate and manage them, including where relevant to bring them back within risk appetite.

Financial sustainability

Risks

Risks that would have an impact on our financial resilience.

Mitigation and management

We’re continuing to address our long-term financial sustainability through the implementation of a multi-year transformation programme aimed at reducing our cost base and diversifying income. Mitigation measures recognise the external challenges the organisation faces. These include short-term funding arrangements, a real-terms decline in some of our largest grants, increased pension liability contributions, local authority funding pressures and a shift towards regional funding opportunities.

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Pension liability

Risks

Risk that the liability will continue to increase.

Mitigation and management

The national charity is the principal employer in a defined benefit scheme, which was closed to future accrual from 2008. The deficit in the scheme is significant and there are risks that it will continue to increase. The scheme has a professional pension Chair, a board of trustees that includes representation from national Citizens Advice and professional advisers to help mitigate any risks that scheme has. Further details are given in Notes 23 and 24 to the financial statements.

Organisational effectiveness

Risks

Risks that could disrupt service delivery or organisational effectiveness.

Mitigation and management

Mitigations include collaborating across the service and working in close partnership with local offices to ensure that we make the most of service-wide

opportunities. Moving forward, we will work together to redesign our membership support offer and approach to funded services. We will adapt them to support every part of our service to better serve clients, enable advice that's fit for the future, and ensure service-wide competitiveness.

People

Risks

Risks that would impact having the volunteers and colleagues we need to develop and deliver the range of services that we offer.

Mitigation and management

We need to be able to attract, recruit and retain the critical talent, capabilities and diversity of volunteers and national colleagues to be an effective, impactful charity. We continue to invest in and develop our organisational culture and employee benefits package, as well as strengthening our leadership and culture capabilities, engaging with Unite the union on change and transformation, and supporting local Citizens Advice to adapt their volunteering models.

Cyber security

Risks

Cyber security incidents and risks that could result in data breaches or affect our ability to deliver services.

Mitigation and management

Our primary systems are well designed and built, there is robust antivirus on all devices, services and core-managed systems, and mandatory colleague training in cyber security. In 2024, we gained the externally-audited Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation in recognition of our efforts to raise the hygiene of our systems and configuration. In 2023 to 2024, we rolled out improved security tools across our cloud infrastructure and email platforms. We’ll continue to enhance protection systems across our technology estate and to work with local offices to help more of them become Cyber Essentials certified. The audit and risk committee receives an update on cyber security and data protection at alternate quarterly meetings.

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Equity, diversity and inclusion

Risks

Risks that would undermine our efforts to improve access and experience gaps for our clients, our EDI capability and disparities amongst our workforce.

Mitigation and management

We have rolled out an EDI learning programme to local offices and invested in our EDI capacity and capability. We are conducting research on racial disparities to understand the reasons for gaps in access and advice, developing a Race Matters action plan and continuing to embed lived experience in our work.

Mitigation and management

In October 2023, we launched ‘Transforming together: our living strategy’ and our core 3 missions. We have now moved into mobilisation, defining strategic areas of focus with local offices and establishing joint ways of working. These include how to measure progress and defining missions-based working and how it will be governed.

Organisational change

Risks

Risk that high levels of change affect performance.

Mitigation and management

Organisational strategy

Risks

Risks that would prevent consistent strategic decision making, impact on system-wide cultural challenges, and result in missed opportunities to innovate.

To ensure that parallel streams of change are co-ordinated and cohesive, we have recruited to organisational design and transformation roles, creating a transformation programme and executive-level board that aims to align and phase all streams of change, reviewing progress, identifying common blockers and releasing them.

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Energy disclosures

Climate change and Citizens Advice

As an organisation, we recognise the impact of climate change and our responsibility to take action to contribute to the safeguarding of the natural environment for present and future generations. We take steps across a number of our areas of operation to reduce our environmental impact, and to work in the least environmentally-harmful way possible.

We are committed to reducing energy use and carbon emissions in our operations, and to raise awareness of the need to do the same amongst our colleagues and suppliers. We have started a project with Carbonxgen to understand our carbon emissions across all 3 scopes and we have created a draft plan to reduce our emissions.

Our carbon strategy for 2024 to 2025 on how we’ll reduce our carbon footprint

Citizens Advice is mainly an office-based organisation. We work to reduce our carbon emissions through a focus on:

office energy use ―working with our landlords to improve energy efficiency and waste reduction. We're resizing our property portfolio to better fit post-pandemic usage. In the last 4 years we have reduced our space considerably and will continue to adjust the size of the portfolio

Office energy use

We continue to work with our landlords to reduce Citizens Advice's share of energy consumption in office buildings.

Some additional actions we took during the year to reduce our emissions further are:

Our Leeds office

travel ―promoting public transport and more sustainable travel use and encouraging video conferencing where appropriate

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Our Cardiff office

Our Birmingham office

Citizens Advice will be submitting our Energy

Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) audit in 2024 and will be creating a more detailed action plan from the findings for both buildings and transport emissions by year end 2024.

With all of the above taken into account, we are predicting that our 2024 to 2025 office CO2 emissions tonnes will reduce as follows:

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Year 2019 to 2020 to 2021 to 2023 to 2024 to 2025 to 2026 to
2020 2021 2022 2024 2025 2026 2027
Office Emissions – total tonnes 106 76 83 69 38 30 25
Actual/Estimate A A A A E E E
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Our London office

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Travel

As the figures demonstrate, travel-related emissions since the pandemic continue to increase but remain below pre-pandemic levels. The majority of the increase is specifically in train travel. Colleagues are still encouraged to work in a blended approach, using remote conferencing and online collaboration where possible, but travel has slowly increased where face-to-face meetings, networking and conferences are critical to relationships and a positive organisational culture.

Methodology

Emissions are related primarily to our offices, travel and overnight stays at hotels. Citizens Advice national offices are all based in landlord-managed buildings. Meter readings are taken from submeters or from the whole building and pro-rated. Travel and hotel emissions are calculated based on information from our suppliers and government guidance on emissions. (Flights, trains, other public transport and hotel stays are part of SECR Scope 3 category. Therefore, by reporting on emissions associated with them, Citizens Advice is going above and beyond the requirements of SECR.)

Gas consumption is calculated using pro rata space allocation of the whole of the 200 Aldersgate building.

independent company, to calculate the CO2e with standard UK government methodology (using UK Government conversion factors for greenhouse gas reporting) and to verify the numbers presented in this report.

Building landlords provide the meter readings to Citizens Advice. We have used Carbonxgen, an

Greenhouse gas emissions due to UK energy use

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Emission Source Tonnes Tonnes Tonnes Tonnes Tonnes
(Scope) CO2e CO2e CO2e CO2e CO2e
2019 to 2021 2020 to 2021 2021 to 2022 2022 to 2023 2023 to 2024
Natural gas combustion in landlord 25.8 25.3 30.6 19.0 19.0
managed offices (Scope 3)
Electricity purchased (Scope 2) 79.9 50.7 52.2 49.7 48.7
UK travel: colleague mileage claims (Scope 1) 131.3 23.9 38.0 55.2 57.9
UK travel: flights, rail, tube, taxis and hotel 192.7 1.0 22.5 59.9 79.2
stays (Scope 3)
Aggregate Tonnes (Scope 1 and 2 only) 211.2 74.6 90.2 104.9 106.6
Aggregate energy usage (Scope 1 and 2 only) 1,092,115 kWh 385,757 kWh 466,424 kWh 542,438 kWh 551,229 kWh
Total Tonnes 429.7 100.9 144.2 183.8 204.7
Total Tonnes per employee (intensity ratio) 0.452 0.101 0.144 0.183 0.188
Total energy usage (electricity and gas) 459,741 kWh 355,255 kWh 350,629 kWh 361,185 kWh 374,811 kWh
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Ella*’s story

Ella* is a single mum in her 30s. She came to Citizens Advice for help managing her energy bills, after her electricity costs soared by around £300 a month.

For most of 2023, Ella’s monthly electricity bill was under £100. But in the autumn, she and her children moved into a new property. This house was fitted with a prepayment meter and “ancient”, inefficient electric storage heaters. Suddenly, Ella found her electricity bills were coming to around £400 a month.

With help from Citizens Advice, Ella was able to switch to a different energy provider who offered a pay-monthly option. This support has made a “massive” difference to her and her family’s life.

“Citizens Advice were fantastic,” she says. “Things are so much better now. My bills now are reduced dramatically and I don’t have to pick between electric and food.”

These energy costs pushed Ella into debt and affected her mental health, as she was constantly afraid the power would go off. Her energy supplier repeatedly refused her requests to switch to a more manageable tariff―instead adding more debt to her prepayment meter account.

“It got to the point where I was literally choosing between putting the electric on or food on the table for the kids,” Ella says. “I was panicking and that’s when I went to Citizens Advice.”

“It got to the point where I was literally choosing between putting the electric on or food on the table for the kids. I was panicking and that's when I went to Citizens Advice”

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Financial review

Understanding Citizens Advice’s finances

The Citizens Advice service is made up of a network of 242 independent local Citizens Advice charities across England, Wales and the Channel Islands, alongside the national charity. Each of our local Citizens Advice charities is separate independent legal entity with its own board of trustees that is accountable to the charity's beneficiaries for its charitable objectives. As such, we do not consolidate our accounts, and our accounts and the following financial review section of our annual report only include the results of the national organisation.

In this section, years written as ‘2023’ and ‘2024’ refer to the financial year ending in March. For example, ‘2024’ covers the months of April 2023 to March 2024.

Income

In 2024 the total income for the national charity increased by 0.8% to £167.7 million from £166.3 million in the previous year.

This reflects a decrease in restricted income to £118.4 million (2023: £127.3 million) and an increase in unrestricted income to £49.3 million (2023: £39.0 million). There was a significant decrease in corporate donations (both restricted and unrestricted), which tend to be one-off in nature, with total corporate donations falling to £10.6m (2023: £19.1m).

The movement from restricted to unrestricted income is largely due to contract income received from the Money and Pensions Service to deliver debt advice. Until February 2023 this service was all delivered under a restricted grant agreement. Since that date, part of the service now operates as an unrestricted contract. Funding received under contract increased to £13.1m during 2024 (2023: £1.6m).

The most significant unrestricted funding continues to be that provided by the Department for Business and Trade to support our core activities. This was largely unchanged this year at £25.3 million (2023: £25.1 million).

The chart below shows where our income came from this year.

In 2024 the total income for the national charity increased by 0.8% to £167.7 million from £166.3 million in the previous year.

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Our main sources of income

Restricted

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14 15
13
1
12
2
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£167.8 million

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11
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Income 2023 to 2024 (2022 to 2023: £166.3 million)

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10 3
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9
8
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7 4
6
5
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1 £21.0 million

Money and Pension Service (2023: £28.0 million)

2 £20.7 million Department for Work and Pensions ―Help to Claim (2023: £20.1 million)

3 £18.7 million Department for Business and Trade ―Consumer (2023: £15.9 million)

4 £13.9 million Welsh government (2023: £13.2 million)

5 £11.8 million Ministry of Justice―Witness Service (2023: £11.4 million)

6 £10.4 million Money and Pensions Service ―Pension Wise (2023: £10.3 million)

7 £8.5 million Other grant income―restricted (2023: £7.3 million)

8 £6.8 million

Corporate donations (2023: £12.2 million)

9 £6.0 million Trussell Trust (2023: £7.3 million)

10 £0.8 million Other income―restricted (2023: £1.7 million)

Unrestricted

11 £25.3 million

Department for Business and Trade ―Core (2023: £25.1 million)

12 £13.1 million

13 £4.8 million Other income―unrestricted (2023: £1.5 million)

14 £4.2 million

Donations & legacies ―unrestricted (2023: £7.4 million)

15 £1.9 million

Other unrestricted income

―from the network (2023: £1.8 million)

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5-year snapshot of our income and expenditure (£millions)

The majority of our funding is awarded through funding agreements and is restricted to a particular area of activity and a specific financial year.

Therefore, where restricted income grows, there will tend to be a corresponding increase in expenditure in the same year, which is reflected in the 5-year snapshot of income and expenditure.

Following a period of significant growth over the last few years, with our income growing by over 19% from £139 million in 2020 to £166 million in 2023, we have seen income stabilise in 2024 at £168 million.

Trustee indemnity insurance up to the value of £10 million was in place for the duration of the reporting period. This was part of a wider policy purchased to provide cover for Citizens Advice and the network at a cost of £254,000 (2023: £227,000).

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Income
Expenditure
£139 million
£137 million
£163 million
£169 million
£154 million
£150 million
£166 million
£164 million
£168 million
£169 million
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
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Expenditure against our 4 areas of charitable activity

Delivering through partnerships

This represents the largest proportion of our expenditure at £99 million (2023: £90.7 million). This includes a significant part of the funding to the local Citizens Advice network and other organisations, which increased to £79.4 million (2023: £78.9 million). We saw an increase in grant funding for energy advice which resulted in increased funding to the local Citizens Advice network to £5.4 million (2023: £2.5 million). Income diversification meant an increase in grant funding to our network over a range of smaller projects to £3.7 million (2023: £0.9 million).

Delivering information and advice

Our spending on information and advice in 2024 was £36.6 million (2023: £30.8 million). This included the direct delivery of services by Citizens Advice. The main areas of

expenditure covered our consumer service, the Witness Service and the continued investment in our online and digital services for clients.

Strengthening our network

In 2024 we spent £18.7 million (2023: £20.7 million) on strengthening our network. This covered our core network support services, information services, systems support, training and quality assurance costs.

Advice and advocacy

Our expenditure on advice and advocacy in 2024 was £10.6 million (2023: £9.3 million). This included the delivery of our energy and post statutory duties in line with our agreed work plan. It also included expenditure on policy and influence from our unrestricted funds to support our other key areas of advice work.

5 3 £167.8 million Expenditure before pension movements 2023 to 2024 2 1 (2022 to 2023: £153.4 million)

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1 £98.7 million
Delivering through partnerships
(2023: £90.7 million)
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3 £18.1 million
Strengthening network
(2023: £20.7 million)
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2 £37.8 million
Delivering information and advice
(2023: £30.8 million)
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4 £10.3 million
Advice and advocacy
(2023: £9,4 million)
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Pensions

National Citizens Advice is the principal employer of a defined benefit multi employer pension scheme. The other employers in this scheme are a small number of local Citizens Advice offices in London. The scheme was closed to new members and to future accrual in 2008. Each year these employers make contributions to the scheme towards the deficit. We remain committed to meeting our obligations in relation to the scheme and work closely with the pension scheme trustee board and its advisers.

Agreement on the 31 March 2022 triennial valuation was concluded with the terms submitted to The Pensions Regulator in August 2023. In the revised recovery plan, the employers agreed to make total contributions of £2.918 million from 1 April 2024 (of which national Citizens Advice pays £2.75 million). This was an increase from £2.279 million previously (of which national Citizens Advice paid £2.111 million). In addition, national Citizens Advice agreed to pay a one-off contribution of £2 million and £0.639 million on finalisation of the agreement. The latter effectively tops up the 2023 to 2024 year from £2.111 million to £2.750 million. These contributions are to be payable until the year ending 31 March 2040 and will remain fixed (reflecting the flat nature

of its core unrestricted funding). For the 6 months commencing on 1 April 2040, national Citizens Advice will pay contributions of £1.375 million and the other participating employers will pay £84,000.

As at 31 March 2024, the negative pension reserve had decreased to £33.2 million (2023: £35.6 million). This represents the provision in the accounts for future committed cash payments to a closed defined benefit pension scheme. This negative balance will be reduced by the annual contributions over the payment period. The overall liability and the level of this reserve will vary based on the discount rate applicable to future contributions and periodic revaluations. The overall liability and the level of this reserve will be subject to the triennial revaluation of the pension liability and any subsequent change to the agreed repayment plan.

The next triennial revaluation will be at 31 March 2025 and will need to be agreed with the Pension Scheme Trustees and subsequently submitted to The Pensions Regulator.

Citizens Advice also operates a defined contribution scheme. New colleagues are automatically enrolled into the scheme and employer contributions are charged as they are incurred.

Reserves

Total reserves

At Citizens Advice we recognise the importance of investing funds in the growth of the charity, whilst retaining sufficient levels of available reserves

We ensure that our reserves provide a prudent level of cover to meet future obligations and guard against unforeseen contingencies on a going concern basis. Total funds at Citizens Advice comprise restricted funds, unrestricted funds and a negative pensions reserve. At 31 March 2024, total funds were £10.9 million (2023: £11.8 million), as detailed in the table below:

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2024 2023
£m £m
Restricted funds 18.9 21.9
Unrestricted funds:
Free reserves 22.3 21.2
General funds – designated 2.0 3.3
Designated funds – fixed assets 0.9 1.0
Total reserves excluding pension reserve 44.1 47.4
Pension reserve (33.2) (35.6)
Total reserves 10.9 11.8
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Restricted funds

Restricted funds total £18.9 million at 31 March 2024 (2023: £21.9 million). The restricted deficit for the year of £3.0 million (2023: £10.9 million surplus) reflects the spend against restricted income received and recognised in prior periods. As reported last year, Citizens Advice was fortunate to receive £11.0m of income in the final part of 2022 to 2023. This drove the restricted surplus recognised last year. Part of this income was used to fund the provision of services in 2023 to 2024.

Unrestricted funds

Unrestricted funds excluding pension reserve represent funding where there is no restriction applied by funders as to how the funding is spent. Unrestricted funds excluding pension reserve total £25.2 million at 31 March 2024 (2023: £25.6 million). This is split between general reserves of £22.3 million (2023: £21.2 million) and designated funds of £2.9 million (2023: £4.4 million).

Designated funds represent those unrestricted funds that have been allocated by the board of trustees for technological investment. These have a value of £2.0 million (2023: £3.3 million), and a designated fund reserved for tangible and intangible fixed assets. This is equal to the net

book value of those assets of £0.9 million (2023: £1.0 million). The trustees intend to review the funds for technological investment to determine whether this designation remains appropriate during 2024 to 2025.

Pension reserve

The negative pensions reserve as at 31 March 2024 had reduced to £33.2 million (2023: £35.6 million). This represents the provision in the accounts for future committed payments to a closed defined benefit pension scheme. This negative balance will be reduced by the annual contributions over the payment period. The overall liability and the level of this reserve will vary based on the discount rate applicable to future contributions and periodic revaluations. Further details are in the pensions section on page 108.

Reserves policy

In the 2022 to 2023 annual report we noted that the trustee board had commissioned a full review of the reserves policy. This review has been delayed until 2024 to 2025 due to staffing pressures. As a result, the trustee board, advised by our audit and risk committee and having considered guidance published by the Charity Commission, based its consideration of reserves on the existing policy.

Each year, the trustee board considers the level of reserves that it is appropriate for the organisation to hold. The policy as it stands is to hold free reserves equivalent to 3 to 6 months’ core operating costs. This has been designed to protect the organisation from a significant fall in income or a material, unforeseen cost, allowing continuation of core services whilst managing that eventuality and/or resetting the cost base.

Core operating costs are considered to be total budgeted unrestricted expenditure for the year ahead, excluding any direct costs of charitable activities provided under contract and any overhead recharges from restricted projects. Based on this calculation, core operating costs are estimated to be £47 million in 2024 to 2025. Holding free reserves equivalent to 3 to 6 months of core operating expenditure would therefore equate to between £11.8 million to £23.5 million (2023: £11 million to £23 million).

Free reserves are defined as total unrestricted funds excluding pension reserve, less designated funds. As of 31 March 2024, our free reserves totalled £22.3 million (2023: £21.2 million).

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Each year the trustee board reviews the reserves policy and the level of reserves that the charity is holding. Based on this latest review, the board considers the current free reserves of £22.3 million to be appropriate. It took into account the size and complexity of the organisation, the economic environment we’re operating in, the risks we’re managing and known investment plans above and beyond annual budgeted costs. Trustees also consider our current risk profile, balancing the need to reflect that risk, whilst making sure we’re not holding funds unnecessarily at the expense of committing funds to meet our charitable objectives.

Investments

We continue to benefit from a strong cash flow supported by our funders. The total cash and short-term deposits balance at the year end was £46.5 million (2023: £42.8 million). As required in our Memorandum of Association, national Citizens Advice has the power to invest monies not immediately required for its purposes in or upon such investments, securities or property as may be thought fit. Citizens Advice’s investment strategy is to manage the charity’s cash flows and investments, controlling the associated risks to maximise income

with minimal risk. At the year end, all cash and current asset investments are held as fixed-term cash deposits, notice accounts or immediately available cash and are held in UK-based institutions with strong credit ratings. Where risk or return is not negatively impacted, we hold funds as 'green' treasury deposits. Our investment policy is reviewed at least annually.

Grant-making policy

National Citizens Advice awards grants to local Citizens Advice (and other local charities and organisations) in line with our grant requirements with funders to meet the needs of our clients. Funds may come directly from national Citizens Advice for developmental opportunities that enhance our service to clients (including piloting or testing new ways of meeting needs or reaching more people) Or as a result of funding awards to national Citizens Advice for specific services. These funds are then passed on to the local offices for delivery, in a range of ways depending on the requirements of the specific grants. The grant application process is published on the Citizens Advice intranet so applicants are aware of the methodology. Evaluators are trained in-house and include

members of the network to ensure transparency and objectivity, we also have a clear appeals process. In 2024, £79.4 million (2023: £78.9 million) in grants was passed through to the network of local Citizens Advice and other organisations from funding sources including:

Department for Business and Trade for the consumer service

Money and Pensions Service for the delivery of money and debt advice in England and Wales

Money and Pensions Service for the delivery of pensions guidance through Pension Wise

Department for Work and Pensions for the provision of support to help people make a Universal Credit claim

Ministry of Justice funding for 2 contact centres for the Witness Service

Energy companies for energy advice and education programmes

Welsh Government for the delivery of face-to-face and telephone advice

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Fundraising policy

In 2024, Citizens Advice continued to test and develop fundraising activities in national Citizens Advice. During the year, Citizens Advice did not use professional fundraisers or commercial participants to act on its behalf. No fundraising complaints were made in the reporting year.

We continued to actively develop long-term partnerships with companies, trusts and foundations to support our strategic aims and long-term sustainability. We recognise the need to protect marginalised people and other members of the public from undue pressure and any intrusion of privacy. This is reflected in the non-invasive fundraising activities we carried out in 2024 within national Citizens Advice. Given that we expect such activities to continue into 2025, we will ensure that, in compliance with our policies and general approach, we continue to protect the public’s interests. We remain registered with the Fundraising Regulator and in compliance with its voluntary regulation scheme. Our fundraising policies and practices align with the Code of Fundraising Practice, in addition to relevant marketing regulations and legislation.

Going concern

The trustees have a reasonable expectation that the charity has adequate resources to continue operating for the foreseeable future. For the purposes of assessing going concern, this is considered to be a period of at least 12 months from the signing of the accounts and audit report. They therefore consider that it is appropriate for the financial statements to be prepared on the going concern basis.

In forming their assessment of going concern the trustees considered the following factors:

Cash and short term Adequate cash flow: deposits at the end of the year totalled £46.5 million (2023: £42.8 million). We have forecast cash flow from this date for a period of 3 years, stress testing the forecasts under a range of scenarios. Based on this, we are confident that the organisation will have adequate cash to enable it to continue operating beyond a period of 12 months from the balance sheet date

Future funding: Whilst there is always some uncertainty over future funding, key relationships are strong. All our major funding streams are confirmed for 2024 to 2025, and many are already confirmed into 2025

All our major funding streams are confirmed for 2024 to 2025, and many are already confirmed into 2025-2026

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Approval

This annual report of the trustees, under the Charities Act 2011 and the Companies Act 2006, was approved by the Board of Trustees. This included approving, in their capacity as company directors, the strategic report and the directors’ report. It is signed as authorised on the board’s behalf by:

Name: Matthew Swindells Title: Director (Chair) Date: 16 October 2024

“Both advisors were excellent; very understanding, professional, and a pleasure to have sat with me to do my PIP form. What a credit to the team! Many thanks for all the help.”

Anonymous client

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Our funders

Citizens Advice enjoys support from a wide range of funders and we obtain the maximum value for every pound we spend. We would like to thank all of the organisations that have supported us during 2023 to 2024. We look forward to working with all of you in future years.

Government funders

Department for Business and Trade (DBT) Department of Health and Social Care Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Ministry of Justice (MOJ) Welsh Government

Other public bodies

Other major funders

Aviva BP British Gas Cadent Foundation Energy Saving Trust Entain E.ON Next GambleAware Garfield Weston Foundation The William Kessler Charitable Trust Lloyds Banking Group Money Advice Trust Moondance Foundation

National Grid Nationwide Foundation NatWest Group Northern Gas Networks OVO Energy Post Office Shell Southern Gas Networks The Julia and Hans Rausing Trust Trussell Trust Virgin Media O2 Wales & West Utilities Yorkshire Building Society

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Legal and administrative details

Legal status

National Citizens Advice is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. It is incorporated in the United Kingdom and the registered office of the charity is in England. All independent local Citizens Advice are members of the national Citizens Advice charity and there are no other full members. The maximum liability of each member is limited to £1. Citizens Advice is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association as amended in October 2000, September 2009 and September 2010.

The registered name of the charity is The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. Since 6 January 2003, the charity has used the operating name of Citizens Advice. The charity was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee on 13 July 1979.

The charity has an active trading subsidiary, Citizens Advice Limited (formerly Advice Services Information Limited). Consolidated accounts have been prepared. The basis of consolidation is set out in the accounting policies note. The charity also has a subsidiary pension trustee company, NACAB Pension Trustees Limited.

Registered office:

Advisers

Citizens Advice

Independent auditor

3[rd] Floor BDO LLP 1 Easton Street 55 Baker Street London WC1X 0DW London W1U 7EU Telephone: 03000 231 231 Internal auditor citizensadvice.org.uk Crowe U.K. LLP

55 Baker Street London W1U 7EU

55 Ludgate Hill London EC4M 7JW Bankers

Registered charity number: 279057 Company number : 01436945

Barclays Bank PLC Company Secretary 1 Churchill Place London E14 5HP Nicola Clarke (until 9 February 2024) Lloyds Bank PLC 25 Gresham Street Nic Buckley London EC2V 7HN (Acting from 10 February 2024)

Solicitors

Bates, Wells and Braithwaite

10 Queen Street Place London EC4R 1BE

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Independent auditor’s report to the members of the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux

Opinion on the financial statements

In our opinion, the financial statements:

We have audited the financial statements of the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (“the Parent Charitable Company”) and its subsidiaries (“the Group”) for the year ended 31 March 2024 which comprise the

Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities, the Consolidated and Charity Balance Sheet, the Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Independence

We remain independent of the Group and the Parent Charitable Company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements.

Conclusions related to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the Group and the Parent Charitable Company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months

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from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The trustees are responsible for the other information. The other information comprises the information included in the annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon. Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit, or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements

themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Other Companies Act 2006 reporting

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

the information given in the trustees’ report, which includes the directors’ report and the strategic report prepared for the purposes of Company Law, for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and

the strategic report and the directors’ report, which are included in the trustees’ report, have been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the Group and the Parent Charitable Company and

its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatement in the strategic report or the trustees’ report.

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

adequate accounting records have not been kept by the Parent Charitable Company, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or

certain disclosures of directors’ remuneration specified by law are not made; or

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Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the statement of trustees’ responsibilities, the trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the Group’s and the Parent Charitable Company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the Group or the Parent Charitable Company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

We have been appointed as auditor under the Companies Act 2006 and report in accordance with the Act and relevant regulations made or having effect thereunder.

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Extent to which the audit was capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in

respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below:

Non-compliance with laws and regulations

As part of designing our audit, based on our understanding of the industry in which the Group operates, we gained an understanding of the legal and regulatory framework applicable to the Group and the Parent Charitable Company. We focused on laws and regulations that could give rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements. In addition, the Trustees are subject to many other laws and regulations where the consequences of non-compliance could have a material effect on amounts or disclosures in the financial statements, for instance through the imposition of fines or litigation. We identified the following areas as those most likely to have such an effect: Data Protection and Health and Safety Legislation, compliance with the Companies Act 2006, UK GAAP, FRS 102 Charities SORP and tax legislation. As part of our discussions, we identified the internal controls established to mitigate risks related to noncompliance with laws and regulations and how management monitor these processes. Where possible, we obtained and reviewed corroborating documentation.

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Our procedures in respect of the above included:

Fraud

As part of designing our audit, we determined materiality and assessed the risks of material misstatement in the financial statements, including how fraud may occur. In particular, we looked at where management made subjective judgements, for example in respect of significant accounting estimates that involved making assumptions and considering future events that are inherently uncertain. We also considered potential financial or other pressures, opportunity and motivations for fraud. As part of this discussion, we identified the internal controls established to mitigate risks related to fraud and how management monitor these processes.

We also completed the following procedures:

completed a review of the minutes of meetings of Those Charged With Governance, as well as relevant Committee meetings, a review of internal audit reports and a review of correspondence with relevant regulators to identify any actual or potential frauds or any potential weaknesses in internal control which could result in fraud susceptibility;

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Our audit procedures were designed to respond to risks of material misstatement in the financial statements, recognising that the risk of not detecting a material misstatement due to fraud is higher than the risk of not detecting one resulting from error, as fraud may involve

deliberate concealment by, for example, forgery, misrepresentations or through collusion. There are inherent limitations in the audit procedures performed and the further removed noncompliance with laws and regulations is from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, the less likely we are to become aware of it.

A further description of our responsibilities for the the audit of the financial statements is located at Financial Reporting Council’s (“FRC’s”) website.This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the Charitable Company’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the Charitable Company’s members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept

or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Charitable Company and the Charitable Compan y’s members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Jill Halford (Senior Statutory Auditor)

For and on behalf of BDO LLP, statutory auditor London, UK

Date: 18 October 2024

BDO LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales (with registered number OC305127).

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Consolidated statement of financial activities Year ended 31 March 2024 (Incorporating an income and expenditure account)

----- Start of picture text -----
Note Unrestricted Restricted Total Total
2024 2023 2024 2023 2024 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Income:
Donations and legacies 2 4,233 7,420 6,750 12,164 10,983 19,584
Income from charitable activities:
Grants 3 25,300 25,100 110,921 113,443 136,221 138,543
Delivery of services 17,006 4,427 388 1,699 17,394 6,126
Training and support 465 530 - - 465 530
Other income:
Other incoming resources 599 1,004 390 4 989 1,008
Investment income 1,675 528 - - 1,675 528
Total income 49,278 39,009 118,449 127,310 167,727 166,319
Expenditure:
Expenditure on raising funds 6 2,670 1,543 218 217 2,888 1,760
Expenditure on charitable activities:
Delivering information and advice 6 7,133 5,603 29,466 25,235 36,599 30,838
Advice and advocacy 6 3,480 2,618 7,129 6,726 10,609 9,344
Strengthening the local Citizens Advice network 6 14,575 16,895 4,139 3,839 18,714 20,734
Partnerships 6 18,523 10,321 80,472 80,405 98,995 90,726
Charitable expenditure before pension movements 46,381 36,980 121,424 116,422 167,805 153,402
Charitable expenditure: Movement in pension provision 17 856 10,751 - - 856 10,751
Total expenditure 47,237 47,731 121,424 116,422 168,661 164,153
Net (expenditure)/income 2,041 (8,722) (2,975) 10,888 (934) 2,166
Net movement in funds 2,041 (8,722) (2,975) 10,888 (934) 2,166
Reconciliation of funds:
Total funds brought forward 19 (10,047) (1,325) 21,878 10,990 11,831 9,665
Total funds carried forward 19 (8,006) (10,047) 18,903 21,878 10,897 11,831
----- End of picture text -----

All activities derive from continuing operations. The statement of financial activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year. The notes on pages 85 to 113 form part of these financial statements.

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Consolidated and charity balance sheet At 31 March 2024

----- Start of picture text -----
Note Group Citizens Advice
2024 2023 2024 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Fixed assets:
Intangible assets 10 436 837 436 837
Tangible assets 11 446 171 446 171
Current assets
Stocks 12 84 84 84 84
Debtors 13 10,773 14,954 10,781 15,007
Short-term deposits 15 17,500 10,000 17,500 10,000
Cash and cash equivalents 16 28,963 32,761 28,943 32,703
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 14 (13,684) (10,788) (13,672) (10,783)
Net current assets 43,636 47,011 43,636 47,011
Total assets less current liabilities 44,518 48,019 44,518 48,019
Provisions for liabilities and charges 17 (33,621) (36,188) (33,621) (36,188)
Total assets less all liabilities 10,897 11,831 10,897 11,831
Funds
Restricted funds 19 18,903 21,878 18,903 21,878
Unrestricted funds 19 25,184 25,555 25,184 25,555
Pension reserve 19 (33,190) (35,602) (33,190) (35,602)
Total unrestricted funds (8,006) (10,047) (8,006) (10,047)
Total funds 10,897 11,831 10,897 11,831
----- End of picture text -----

The charity has taken exemption from presenting its unconsolidated statement of financial activities under s408 of the Companies Act 2006. The unconsolidated deficit for the year is £0.9 million (2023: £2.2 million surplus). The notes on pages 85 to 113 form part of these financial statements.

The financial statements were approved and authorised for issue by the trustee board and signed on their behalf by:

Matthew Swindells

Director (Chair) Date: 16 October 2024

Deborah Harris

Director (Treasurer) Date: 16 October 2024

Company number: 01436945

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Consolidated statement of cash flows Year ended 31 March 2024

----- Start of picture text -----
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Cash flows from operating activities
Net movement of funds (934) 2,166
Adjustments for
Amortisation of intangible assets 402 403
Depreciation of property, plant and equipment 157 56
Profit/(loss) on disposal of tangible assets 69 -
Interest receivable (1,675) (528)
Decrease in stock - 6
Decrease/(Increase) in debtors 4,181 (6,752)
Increase/(Decrease) in creditors 2,896 (92)
(Decrease)/Increase in provisions (2,567) 9,363
Net cash generated by operating activities 2,529 4,622
Cash flows from investing activities
-
Purchase of tangible assets (502)
Interest received 1,675 528
Purchase of short-term deposits (7,500) (10,000)
Net cash used in investing activities (6,327) (9,472)
Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents (3,798) (4,850)
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year 32,761 37,611
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year 28,963 32,761
----- End of picture text -----

Notes:

----- Start of picture text -----
a) Analysis of changes in net debt At 1 Apr 2023 Cash flows At 31 Mar 2024
£’000 £’000 £’000
Cash at bank and in hand 32,761 (3,798) 28,963
Total changes in net debt 32,761 (3,798) 28,963
----- End of picture text -----

The notes on pages 85 to 113 form part of these financial statements.

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Notes to the financial statements Year ended 31 March 2024

Citizens Advice is a public benefit entity registered as a charity in England and Wales and a company limited by guarantee. It was incorporated on 13 July 1979 (company number: 01436945) and registered as a charity on 21 January 1980 (charity number: 279057). The registered office of Citizens Advice is: 3rd Floor, 1 Easton Street, London, WC1X 0DW. The consolidated financial statements are prepared in sterling, being the functional currency of the company, and are rounded to the nearest thousand pounds.

1. Accounting policies

a) Accounting convention

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice. This is applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS ― 102) (effective 1 January 2019) (Charities SORP (FRS 102)), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Companies Act 2006. Citizens Advice meets the

definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy note(s). The principal accounting policies, which have been applied consistently, except where noted, are set out below.

b) Consolidation

Citizens Advice Limited, a trading subsidiary controlled by Citizens Advice, has also been consolidated within the accounts on a line-byline basis. The net outgoing resources for Citizens Advice alone were £934,000 (2023: £2,166,000 net incoming).

A separate statement of financial activities for the charity is not presented because the charity has taken advantage of the exemptions afforded by Section 408 of the Companies Act 2006. The charity has taken advantage of the exemption in FRS 102 from the requirements to present a charity-only cash flow statement.

Individual local Citizens Advice network members are not consolidated within these accounts as they

are independent legal entities funded directly and indirectly from their own sources accountable to their own members and funding bodies, and not controlled by Citizens Advice.

c) Going concern

The financial statements have been prepared on the going concern basis. Detailed financial budgets are presented and approved by the trustee board on a 12-month basis together with forecasts and projections over a 3-year period. Our planning processes, including financial projections and scenario planning, take into consideration the current economic climate and its potential impact on the various sources of income and planned expenditure.

We acknowledge our pension fund obligations, and the impact of the 2022 triennial valuation on our contributions, and have a clear strategy to manage the deficit, which includes a deficit reduction plan and new Schedule of Contributions which was agreed with the pension scheme trustee board in August 2023.

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We also acknowledge the impact this has had on our reserves, which now show negative total unrestricted funds. However the negative pension reserve reflects payments which will not crystallise in the short to medium term, and Citizens Advice has factored these contributions into our cash flow projections based on future activities. The contingent liability referenced in Note 24 has also been considered in the range of scenarios considered for cash flow projections.

After reviewing the Group’s forecasts and projections, the trustees consider that the Group is well placed to manage the business risks it faces. This position is supported by a sufficient level of liquid reserves to cover business continuity and development plans, a good relationship with our key funders, existing funding agreements and contracts in place and proven ability to retain and secure new services.

The trustees therefore have a reasonable expectation that the Group has sufficient resources to continue in its operational existence for the foreseeable future. They believe that there are no material uncertainties that call into doubt the ability of the Group to continue as a going concern.

d) Intangible and tangible fixed assets

Fixed assets are stated at historical costs less accumulated depreciation and accumulated impairment losses and are recognised in the balance sheet on initial acquisition, in accordance with FRS 102. Only assets with an acquisition cost over £1,000 are capitalised. Depreciation is charged on a straight-line basis on the cost of assets less residual value over their estimated useful life. A full year’s depreciation is charged in the year of acquisition. Fixed assets are assessed for impairment at the balance sheet date

The estimated lives of the assets are as follows:

Office and computer equipment―3 years.

Infrastructure software―between 3 and 8 years, depending on the duration of licence.

Software development costs and infrastructure purchased and developed in-house have been capitalised within intangible assets as they can be identified with a specific project anticipated to produce future benefits. Once brought into use, they will be amortised on the straight-line basis over the anticipated life of the benefits arising from the

completed project, usually expected to be between 3 and 8 years.

Fixtures and fittings―5 years.

e) Stocks

Stocks are goods donated and held for distribution to local Citizens Advice. They are measured at fair value at the balance sheet date. Due to the nature of the goods and the availability of selling prices for comparable items, the fair value is based on market value of equivalent items and assessed for impairment at the balance sheet date.

f) Cash, cash equivalents and short term investments

Cash and cash equivalents are short-term highly liquid investments which are readily convertible to known amounts of cash and that are subject to an insignificant risk of changes in value. This includes cash in hand and deposits with banks not held for investment purposes. Short-term investments are fixed-term deposits held in excess of 3 months from the date of acquisition and hence not included in cash and cash equivalents.

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g) Leases

Annual rentals are charged to the statement of financial activities on a straight-line basis over the term of the lease. Rent-free periods are accounted for over the lease period.

h) Pension costs

The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (NACAB) Pension and Assurance Plan (1991) is a multi employer defined benefit scheme which was closed to future accrual during the financial year ended 31 March 2008. Having taken advice from the scheme’s actuary, Citizens Advice cannot identify its share of the underlying assets and liabilities on a consistent and reasonable basis. The disclosures under FRS 102 in this circumstance are shown in note 23.

The expected cost of providing pensions is calculated periodically by a professionally-qualified actuary. The operating costs of providing retirement benefits to employees are charged to the statement of financial activities in the year in which they are incurred as required by FRS 102. A provision is recognised for future funding contributions in accordance with the accounting policy for provisions.

On 1 April 2005, Citizens Advice introduced a defined contribution pension, the Citizens Advice

Group Personal Pension Plan operated by Scottish Widows. Since April 2014, colleagues have been automatically enrolled unless they opt out of the scheme. The employer’s contributions are charged to the statement of financial activities in the period in which they were incurred. Some Consumer Futures members who transferred in April 2014 retain participation in the Civil Service scheme.

i) Financial instruments

Citizens Advice has financial assets and financial liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at the present value of future cash flows (amortised cost). Financial assets held at amortised cost comprise the Group’s debtors (excluding prepayments), cash and cash equivalents and short-term deposits.

Financial liabilities held at amortised cost comprise the Group’s short- and long-term creditors excluding deferred income and taxation payable.

Investments in subsidiary undertakings are held at cost less impairment.

j) Grants payable and receivable

Grants payable are made to local Citizens Advice and other bodies, and the liability is recognised when the obligation arises as set out in the funding agreement for delivery of services resulting in the payment becoming unavoidable, typically when the performance-related obligations have been met, although the grant may not be due.

Grants receivable are recognised when entitlement is established, in particular where performancerelated obligations have been achieved, there is probability of receipt and the amount can be reliably measured. Any unexpended grant is carried forward in reserves.

If any grant has been provided for a stated purpose, it is carried forward as restricted funds. Any unused grants not able to be used for the purpose determined by the funder are returned in accordance with the funding agreement.

k) Deferred income

Deferred income relating to subscriptions is shown within the balance sheet. Other deferred income relates to restricted funding received in advance but where the related expenditure can only take place in a future accounting period.

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l) Legacies and donations

Legacies are recognised when they are received or when probate is given and a reliable estimate of the amount is available, whichever is sooner. Donations are recognised when the income recognition criteria are met, which is usually upon receipt. If there is entitlement, receipt is probable and the value can be reliably measured, donations have been recognised prior to receipt.

Gifts in kind are valued at a reasonable estimate of the value to Citizens Advice, which is normally equal to the market value. They are recognised when the income recognition criteria are met, typically when the goods or services have been received.

m) Delivery of services

The trading activities of Citizens Advice, including the local Citizens Advice membership fees, the sale of information products and delivery of advice services under contract, are exercised in the course of carrying out the primary purpose of the charity.

The income and expenditure are shown in the statement of financial activities as delivery of services and strengthening the local Citizens Advice network respectively. Income from annual

membership and subscriptions to information

products is recognised evenly in line with the period of provision of the service. Services delivered under contract are recognised as unrestricted. Income is recognised in line with the productivity (measured as time spent providing the service), alongside agreed recovery of implementation costs incurred.

Any activities that are not for the primary purpose of the charity are accounted for in Citizens Advice Limited and this subsidiary has been consolidated into the statement of financial activities.

n) Training and support

The training and support activities comprise income from the provision of training courses in debt, employment, welfare benefits and consumer issues. Also, contributions towards the cost of providing insurance cover on behalf of the network in England, Wales and the Channel Islands.

o) Other income

Income for the supply of services is recognised in line with the extent to which the service has been delivered, typically based on time spent providing the service, at which point there is entitlement and receipt is probable.

Goods donated for distribution are recognised as income at fair value which is the market value and held as stocks until distributed, at which point they are included under the charitable expenditure at the same value.

p) Resources expended

All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis and has been classified under the charitable expenditure activity headings with reference to activities performed in the year.

Costs of generating funds are those costs relating to fundraising for new donors or new projects. Colleague costs are all emoluments incurred. Other direct costs are non-colleague costs incurred by each principal activity. Governance costs are those incurred in connection with the administration of the charity’s constitutional and statutory duties.

Irrecoverable VAT is treated as resources expended in the principal activity that incurred the original VAT. Support costs, including premises, fundraising, central administration, IT support, human resources costs, governance and finance costs (colleague and other costs), which are not directly attributable to a

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particular principal activity, have been fully allocated to departments and activities based on direct colleague costs of the principal activity as shown in note 7. The allocation is completed on a consistent basis for all support costs across the charitable objectives, with the exception of delivery of services through partnerships. The delivery of services through partnerships are funded by restricted income and receive an allocation of support costs through full cost recovery, thus no allocation of unrestricted support costs is required.

q) Reserves

Unrestricted funds represent funds raised or grants awarded for no specified project which are expendable at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the charity’s objectives. There are no carry-forward restrictions on unrestricted funds. Transfers to and from designated funds are subject to the approval of the trustees.

Restricted funds are awarded for a specified programme as declared by the funder, or restricted with their authority or with a restriction created by a legal process. The scope of the programme is still within the wider objectives of the charity. Income may be awarded in one year for expenditure in that or a subsequent year on a specified programme.

r) Provisions

Provisions for future liabilities are recognised when Citizens Advice has a legal or constructive financial obligation that can be reliably estimated and for which there is an expectation that payment will be made.

The provisions include Citizens Advice’s pension liability in compliance with FRS 102. This provision has been calculated as the discounted value of future pension contributions as agreed per the latest Schedule of Contributions.

s) Critical accounting judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty In the application of the charity’s accounting policies, trustees are required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and underlying assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates. The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised if the revision affects only that period, or in the period of the revision and future periods if the revision affects

the current and future periods.

The key judgements and estimates that have a significant effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements are described in the accounting policies and are summarised below:

Income recognition ―Due to the range and complexity of the Group’s funding streams, income recognition is deemed to be an area that requires judgement to appropriately apply the income accounting policies. In particular, consideration has been given to ensuring the correct classification between income from grants and income from contracts. Income from contracts is recognised when the entitlement is established, there is probability of receipt and the amount can be reliably measured. Income from contracts is recognised as unrestricted income where there is no requirement to pay back any surplus to the funders, and the surplus can be spent on any purpose. The charity has seen an increase in such income this year as part of the Money and Pensions Service debt advice activities switched from grant funded to contract funded as of 1 February 2023.

Pension scheme ―The charity is part of a closed defined benefit multi employer scheme alongside 15

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local Citizens Advice. During the period the scheme operated there were many colleagues who moved between working for the different entities involved in the scheme and full records of these movements are unavailable. As a result of these incomplete records, and after taking professional advice, the charity has determined that the scheme is unable to properly differentiate the liability between the scheme members. As a result, Citizens Advice accounts for the scheme as a defined contribution plan, recognising on the balance sheet the present value of the future committed payments. Further information is contained within note 23.

Pension liabilities ―The charity recognises a liability relating to future deficit contributions as determined by the current Schedule of Contributions. Under accounting requirements, the liability shall be measured at the present value of the contributions payable, calculated using a discount rate. The discount rate used is 4.9% (2023: 4.8%), and this represents a key accounting estimate, but the charity obtains advice from a qualified actuary to determine this.. In order to determine the appropriate discount rate at each balance sheet date, the charity engages a firm of actuaries to provide expert advice about this

assumption and the consequent effect on the pension liability. Further information is contained within note 23.

t) Events after the end of the reporting period Events that occur between the reporting date and the date of signing, of which impact the financial statements, are assessed as either adjusting or nonadjusting events. This is determined by whether they provide evidence of conditions that existed at the reporting date or those that arose after the reporting date respectively. Material adjusting events are reflected in the values in the financial statements, whilst non-adjusting events are reflected in the disclosures only.

2. Donations and legacies

----- Start of picture text -----
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Legacies 57 1
Donations - corporate donors 10,603 19,099
Donations - gifts in kind 63 113
Donations - individual giving 260 371
Total donations and legacies 10,983 19,584
----- End of picture text -----

There was a significant increase in corporate donations in 2023, which are typically one-off in nature. Donations included £2.8 million from Aviva (2023: £4.3 million) and £6.6 million from National Grid (2023: £6.0 million).

We received £1 million which was part of a £20 million donation to charity that Entain was required to make as a part of a settlement with the CPS and HMRC, announced in 2023.

Legacies also increased, but similarly these are one off in nature, with £55,000 of the 2024 value related to one estate. Gifts in kind includes professional services to the value of £nil (2023: £20,551) provided by 2020 Trustee Services, along with advertising credits for use on Google to the value of £62,732 (2023: £91,896).

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3. Grants

a) Government grants

----- Start of picture text -----
Funder 2024 2023 Purpose
£’000 £’000
Government department grants
Department for Business and Trade (DBT) unrestricted 25,300 25,100 Core charitable objectives
DBT restricted 12,251 9,744 Consumer service
DBT restricted 6,456 6,122 Consumer (levy funded)
DBT restricted 57 50 Product safety
DBT restricted 2,871 2,871 Big Energy Saving Week/Network and energy advice
Department of Health - 4 Membership of the Health and Wellbeing Alliance
Department for Work and Pensions 20,744 20,100 Universal Support: Help to Claim
Ministry of Justice 11,777 11,391 Court-based Witness Service
Competition & Markets Authority - 22 Consumer policy
Welsh Government 7,638 9,788 Advice service
Welsh Government 6,220 3,375 Debt and housing advice
Welsh Government 20 16 Discrimination advice
Total Government grants 93,334 88,583
----- End of picture text -----

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3. Grants (continued)

b) Grants from other public bodies

----- Start of picture text -----
Funder 2024 2023 Purpose
£’000 £’000
The Insolvency Service 93 72 Debt relief orders
Money and Pensions Service 10,397 10,271 Pension guidance
Money and Pensions Service [1] 20,954 27,998 Money and debt advice and debt relief orders
Total grants from other public bodies 31,444 38,341
c) Other grants
Purpose (funder) 2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Online scams awareness (Facebook) 35 474
Energy advice (various) 4,293 1,917
Specialist support (various) 366 1,149
Food banks (Trussell Trust) 5,985 7,303
Money advice (various) 764 776
Total other grants 11,443 11,619
Total grants 136,221 138,543
----- End of picture text -----

1 Part of the Money and Pensions Service grant funding ended on 1 January 2023. Since 1 February 2023 part of this has been delivered under a contract, and as such, is not included in the figures above. This income is now included in unrestricted Delivery of Services in the Consolidated Statement of Financial Activity.

A list of grant funders is available in the strategic report.

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4. Information regarding directors and employees

The trustees of Citizens Advice are the non-

executive directors of the charitable company. nil emoluments were paid to any non-executive directors (2023: £nil). Expenses of £4,586 (2023: £1,555) were reimbursed, or paid directly to third parties for 5 (2023: 7) of the non-executive directors during the year. These expenses related to travel, accommodation and subsistence incurred in the course of executing their duties. Trustee indemnity insurance up to the value of £10 million was in place for the duration of the reporting period. This was part of a wider policy purchased to provide cover for Citizens Advice and the network at a cost of £254,000 (2023: £227,000).

Employee costs during the year:

----- Start of picture text -----
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Wages and salaries 44,649 39,756
Social security costs 4,897 4,436
Pension costs 3,189 3,342
Temporary colleagues 1,235 1,317
Total employee costs 53,970 48,851
----- End of picture text -----

Wages and salaries above include £109,217 (2023: £876,277) for redundancy and settlement costs. Of these payments £nil (2023: £54,865) were payable to key management personnel. Redundancy payments were made in line with our contractual terms.

Pension costs shown above relate to amounts accrued

in the year with £382,981 (2023: £nil) included in other creditors at year end. Payments totalling £2.7 million (2023: £2.4 million) were made to the Citizens Advice Group Personal Pension Plan. A payment of £55,985 (2023: £57,000) was made to the Civil Service Pension scheme for Consumer Futures colleagues who transferred to Citizens Advice in April 2014.

In addition to the pension costs disclosed above, contributions totalling £4.8 million (2023: £2.6 million) were made to the NACAB Pension and Assurance Plan (1991) which closed on 27 March 2008. £4.8 million (2023: £2.1 million) of this was paid from the existing pension liability provision.

The number of employees who received employee benefits (excluding employer pension costs but including compensation for loss of office) in excess of £60,000 is analysed below:

----- Start of picture text -----
2024 2023
Number Number
£60,000 to £69,999 67 54
£70,000 to £79,999 35 21
£80,000 to £89,999 8 11
£90,000 to £99,999 5 3
£110,000 to £119,999 3 3
£120,000 to £129,999 2 2
£180,000 to £189,999 1 1
----- End of picture text -----

Citizens Advice has identified the key management personnel as the executive team, as outlined in the strategic report. The total remuneration for key management personnel was £875,873 (2023: £934,462), including remuneration as included in table below, plus employer's Nationa Insurance (NI) of £91,280 (2023: £97,294). This includes pension contributions of £35,804 (2023: £35,147). In addition, the key management personnel were reimbursed £1,653 (2023: £1,193) for travel and out-of-pocket expenses incurred in the course of executing their responsibilities.

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4. Information regarding directors and employees (continued)

Key management personnel remuneration for the year, including basic pay, pension and benefits was as follows:

----- Start of picture text -----
Notes Role Remuneration to 31 March 2024 Remuneration
to 31 March
2023
Salary Pension Total
Chief Executive £180,840 - £180,840 £180,840
1 Executive Director of Advice and Advocacy - - - £127,174
1.1 Interim Executive Director of Advice and Advocacy £78,224 £4,797 £83,021 -
Executive Director of Operations £123,700 £8,040 £131,740 £121,158
2 Executive Director of Finance and Commercial £112,480 £7,207 £119,687 £54,193
2.1 Interim Executive Director of Finance and Commercial £32,249 £2,067 £34,316 -
2.2 Interim Director of Commercial - - - £131,433
Executive Director of People £123,700 £ 8,040 £131,740 £131,181
3 Executive Director of Strategy and Transformation £114,759 £7,459 £122,218 £39,937
3.1 Interim Executive Director of Strategy and Transformation - - - £51,252
4 Executive Director of Digital Technology and Advice £57,500 £2,990 £60,490 -
----- End of picture text -----

1. James Plunkett was Executive Director of Advice and Advocacy until March 2023. Matt Upton was Interim Executive Director of Advice and Advocacy until 12 December 2023 This post has not been filled, with his responsibilities covered by directors.

4 November 2022.

3. Tracey Waltho has been Executive Director of Strategy and Transformation since 30 November 2022. Maz Hamilton was Interim Executive Director of Strategy and Transformation from 21 March 2022 to 6 October 2022 and was only included in the above comparative from that point, having moved from their role as Programme Director for Content Strategy and Delivery.

4. Alex Butler has been employed as Executive Director of Digital Technology and Advice since November 2023, having previously been in this role as a contractor.

Pension contributions for key management personnel in the scheme are paid at the same rate as for all colleagues. The maximum employer contribution available under the colleague scheme is 6.5%.

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4. Information regarding directors and employees (continued)

On 1 April 2023 all colleagues received a pay increase of 2.5% of salary and £950, plus a further non consolidated payment of £850 to those in Support grades, £750 to those in Officer grades, and £350 to those in Senior Officer grades. Other salary changes were a result of role changes and revaluations. The remuneration policy is set out in the strategic report.

The average number of people employed in each activity during the year was:

----- Start of picture text -----
2024 2023
Number Number
Raising funds 19 17
Charitable activities
Delivering information and advice 361 350
Advice and advocacy 151 132
Strengthening the local 286 273
Citizens Advice network
Partnerships 274 237
Average number of 1,091 1,009
persons employed
----- End of picture text -----

5. Grants payable

Grants are received for the above purposes and distributed amongst local Citizens Advice members. The local Citizens Advice members who received a grant in the year are shown in Appendix 1

a) Grants to local Citizens Advice members

----- Start of picture text -----
Purpose 2024 2024 2023
Total number £’000 £’000
Money and debt advice 154 16,908 21,326
Pensions guidance 17 7,476 7,426
Consumer advice 8 7,160 6,526
Universal credit: Help to Claim 60 13,535 13,606
Welsh Government funded projects 19 11,582 11,025
Energy advice 327 5,415 2,471
Witness services 2 717 672
Online scams awareness - - 109
Gambling support service - - 39
Debt relief orders 148 63 47
Help through Hardship 15 5,004 5,013
Cost of living 30 1,042 3,810
Various projects 67 3,681 915
Total local Citizens Advice network grants 847 72,583 72,985
----- End of picture text -----

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5. Grants payable (continued)

b) Grants to other bodies

143 grants (2023: 78 grants) were paid to non local Citizens Advice network participants in delivery of national projects, funded by partner organisations.

----- Start of picture text -----
Purpose Recipient 2024 2024 2023
Total no. £’000 £’000
Debt advice Better Leeds Communities - - 93
Debt advice Birmingham Settlement 3 348 327
Debt advice Burley Lodge Centre 3 116 41
Various Citizens Advice Scotland 4 2,591 2,411
Debt advice Ebor Gardens Advice Centre 3 210 194
Energy Fuel Bank Foundation 1 1,605 508
Debt advice Homemaker Southwest 2 157 154
Debt advice Mind Salford 3 115 109
Debt line Money Advice Trust - - 545
Debt advice North Bristol Advice Centre 2 128 98
Various Shelter 1 460 428
Various SNAP Cymru 1 142 128
Debt advice South Bristol Advice Services 2 155 33
Debt advice St Vincent’s Centre 2 112 107
Various Various (2023: 58) 116 677 756
Total grants to others 143 6,816 5,932
Total grants 990 79,399 78,917
----- End of picture text -----

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6. Total resources expended before pension movements

Total resources expended for the year ended 31 March 2024:

----- Start of picture text -----
Direct Grants Other Support Total
colleague direct costs 2024
costs costs
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Costs of generating funds 757 - 1,766 365 2,888
Charitable objectives
Delivering information and advice 14,795 11,538 5,116 5,150 36,599
Advice and advocacy 6,199 10 1,409 2,991 10,609
Strengthening the local Citizens Advice network 11,697 63 1,311 5,643 18,714
Partnerships 11,232 67,788 16,736 3,239 98,995
Total resources expended 44,680 79,399 26,338 17,388 167,805
----- End of picture text -----

Total resources expended for the year ended 31 March 2023:

----- Start of picture text -----
Direct Grants Other Support Total
colleague direct costs 2023
costs costs
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Costs of generating funds 668 - 754 338 1,760
Charitable objectives
Delivering information and advice 13,427 8,088 4,329 4,994 30,838
Advice and advocacy 5,062 63 1,661 2,558 9,344
Strengthening the local Citizens Advice network 10,499 47 4,881 5,307 20,734
Partnerships 9,083 70,719 7,978 2,946 90,726
Total resources expended 38,739 78,917 19,603 16,143 153,402
----- End of picture text -----

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7. Support cost breakdown by activity

Support costs are allocated across activities based on direct colleague costs. The amounts below represent the allocated

colleague and other allocated costs in note 6. Support costs breakdown by activity for the year ended 31 March 2024:

----- Start of picture text -----
Premises & Finance IT, Data People Other Total
Facilities & Change Services Corporate 2024
Management & Comms Services
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Costs of generating funds 94 63 91 69 48 365
Charitable objectives
Delivering information and advice 834 1,238 802 1,345 931 5,150
Advice and advocacy 774 519 744 564 390 2,991
Strengthening the local Citizens Advice network 1,460 979 1,404 1,064 736 5,643
Partnerships 825 571 794 620 429 3,239
Total support cost 3,987 3,370 3,835 3,662 2,534 17,388
----- End of picture text -----

Support costs include governance costs of £1.2 million (2023: £1.4 million). These costs include internal and external audit fees (see note 9), costs incurred in supporting the work of the trustees and an apportionment of executive team costs.

Support costs breakdown by activity for the year ended 31 March 2023:

Premises &
Facilities
Management
£’000		 Finance
£’000		 IT, Data
& Change
£’000		 People
Services
& Comms
£’000		 Other
Corporate
Services
£’000		 Total
2023
£’000
Costs of generating funds 62 59 90 75 52 338
Charitable objectives
Delivering information and advice 513 1,178 745 1,505 1,053 4,994
Advice and advocacy 469 444 681 567 397 2,558
Strengthening the local Citizens Advice network 973 921 1,413 1,177 823 5,307
Partnerships 531 518 772 662 463 2,946
Total support cost 2,548 3,120 3,701 3,986 2,788 16,143

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8. Corporation Tax

Citizens Advice is a registered charity and accordingly is exempt from taxation on income and gains where they are applied for charitable purposes. Citizens Advice Limited covenants all distributable profits to the main charity each year under Gift Aid and does not typically incur any tax liability.

9. Net expenditure

Net outgoing resources for the year are stated after charging:

----- Start of picture text -----
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Operating lease costs
Property 2,843 1,608
Office equipment 5 23
Amortisation 402 403
Depreciation 157 56
External auditor’s remuneration
External audit fee 120 106
Tax advisory and compliance fees 3 9
Assurance services 2 -
Internal auditor’s remuneration 76 76
----- End of picture text -----

10. Fixed assets – intangible assets

The fixed assets of Citizens Advice are the same as those of the Group, as stated below. Assets have been split between intangible and tangible assets in accordance with FRS 102 and the Charities SORP 2019. Intangible fixed assets include computer licences and software purchases.

----- Start of picture text -----
Operational infrastructure software Total
£’000 £’000
Cost
At 1 April 2023 3,509 3,509
At 31 March 2024 3,509 3,509
Amortisation
At 1 April 2023 2,671 2,671
Charge for the year 402 402
At 31 March 2024 3,073 3,073
Net book value at 31 March 2024 436 436
Net book value at 31 March 2023 837 837
----- End of picture text -----

The amortisation charge is reallocated over all charitable activities.

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11. Fixed assets – tangible assets

These include capitalised fixtures, fittings and equipment.

----- Start of picture text -----
Fixtures, fittings and equipment Total
£’000 £’000
Cost
At 1 April 2023 486 486
Additions 502 502
Disposals (174) (174)
At 31 March 2024 814 814
Depreciation
At 1 April 2023 316 316
Charge for the year 157 157
Disposals (105) (105)
At 31 March 2024 368 368
Net book value at 31 March 2024 446 446
Net book value at 31 March 2023 171 171
----- End of picture text -----

12. Stocks

13. Debtors

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Citizens Advice
2024 2023 2024 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Trade debtors 1,123 423 1,117 423
Other debtors 1,289 1,975 1,289 1,975
Prepayments and 8,361 12,556 8,360 12,556
accrued income
Subsidiary - - 15 53
undertakings
Total debtors 10,773 14,954 10,781 15,007
----- End of picture text -----

Included in other debtors is £9,498 (2023: £12,417) which relates to 23 (2023: 16) colleague season

ticket, car, career development or home technology loans and the Cycle to Work Scheme. These are interest free and are recoverable through monthly payroll deductions. There were no executive directors (2023: none) with a loan outstanding at the balance sheet date (2023: £nil).

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Citizens Advice
2024 2023 2024 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Donated goods held for distribution 84 84 84 84
Total stocks 84 84 84 84
----- End of picture text -----

Stocks held are donated refurbished tablets and mobile phones which Citizens Advice distributes to local Citizens Advice.

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14. Creditors: amounts falling due within one year

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Citizens Advice
2024 2023 2024 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Trade creditors 2,097 511 2,097 511
Local Citizens Advice network grants 3,680 1,313 3,680 1,313
Other creditors 1,895 1,592 1,895 1,587
Other taxation and social security 1,449 1,197 1,447 1,197
Accruals and deferred income 4,563 6,175 4,553 6,175
Total creditors amounts falling due within one year 13,684 10,788 13,672 10,783
Accruals and deferred income comprises:
Accruals 3,756 5,024 3,756 5,019
Deferred income brought forward 1,151 1,244 1,156 1,196
Amount released from previous year (1,026) (1,233) (1,026) (1,185)
Incoming resources deferred in the year 682 1,140 667 1,185
Total accruals and deferred income 4,563 6,175 4,553 6,175
----- End of picture text -----

Deferred income arises where funds are recognised, but not utilised in a financial year and the funder does not require repayment of the underspends, so they are carried forward for spend in subsequent years. Typically this occurs with funding agreements

covering more than one year or where funding periods are non-coterminous with our financial year. Deferred income is generally utilised in the following financial year, but occasionally over several years.

15. Investments

The value of shares held in Citizens Advice Limited is £2 being 2 ordinary shares of £1 each which represents 100% of the issued share capital. The company is a private limited company which was incorporated on 16 July 1982. The company is incorporated in England. The company manages all forms of sponsorship opportunities and other trading activities on behalf of the parent company and covenants all profits under Gift Aid. The turnover in 2024 was £625 (2023: £47,750) but the subsidiary presented a loss after tax of £2,225 (2023: profit £29,227) and subsequently had negative net assets of £2,223 at 31 March 2024 (2023: £2). The shares are held as a fixed asset.

There were nil cash deposits held as investments at 31 March 2024 (2023: £nil) and nil were held as fixed assets (2023: £nil), but £17.5 million (2023: £10.0 million) were held in short-term deposits, maturing in 12 months or less.

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16. Cash at bank and in hand

Cash and short term deposits valued at £46.5 million (2023: £42.8 million) were held as at 31 March 2024, made up of cash and cash equivalents of £29.0 million (2023: £32.8 million) and shortterm deposits of £17.5 million (2023: £10.0 million). These were all held in UK accounts. Of these £1.9 million (2023: £3.3 million) has been identified in the balance sheet as a designated fund for technology investments.

17. Provisions

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Citizens Advice
2024 2023 2024 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Pension provision
Provision at 1 April 35,602 26,285 35,602 26,285
(Utilised) for deficit funding contributions (4,750) (2,111) (4,750) (2,111)
Remeasurement due to change in discount rate (206) (2,669) (205) (2,669)
Remeasurement due to new schedule of contributions - 13,420 - 13,420
- -
Additional provision for salary linkage 1,062 1,062
Increase /(decrease) in pension provision in SOFA 856 10,751 857 10,751
Increase due to unwinding of discount 1,482 677 1,481 677
Pension provision at 31 March 33,190 35,602 33,190 35,602
Other provisions
Provision at 1 April 585 540 585 540
(Released) during the year (2) (1) (2) (1)
- -
(Utilised) during the year (445) (445)
Additional provision 293 47 293 47
Other provisions at 31 March 431 586 431 586
Total provisions at 31 March 33,621 36,188 33,621 36,188
----- End of picture text -----

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17. Provisions (continued)

The nature of provisions and the expected timing of resulting payments are:

----- Start of picture text -----
Nature of provision Amount Payment
£’000 due
----- End of picture text -----

Amount
£’000		 Amount
£’000
Dilapidations payments due on
leased buildings after frst break
clause		 95 Between
2024 and
2029
Local Citizens Advice pension
liability		 5 By 2027
Advice risk provision 331 Between
2024 and
2025
Pension contribution liability 33,190 See note 23
Total provisions at 31 March 2024 33,621

18. Financial instruments

As at 31 March 2024 the Group’s financial instruments were:

----- Start of picture text -----
Group
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Financial assets at amortised cost
Cash 28,963 32,761
Current asset investment 17,500 10,000
Trade debtors 1,123 423
Other debtors 1,289 1,975
Accrued income 6,457 10,560
Total financial assets at amortised cost 55,332 55,719
Financial liabilities at amortised cost
Trade creditors 2,097 511
Other creditors 1,895 1,602
Accruals 3,756 5,024
Provisions 33,190 35,602
Total financial liabilities at amortised cost 40,938 42,739
Income, expenses, gains and losses in respect of these financial instruments were:
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Income Expense Gains Income Expense Gains/
(losses) (losses)
Financial assets at
amortised cost
Interest on cash balances 1,675 - - 528 - -
and short-term deposit
----- End of picture text -----

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19. Statement of funds – Group and Citizens Advice

----- Start of picture text -----
At 1 April Income Expenditure Transfers At 31 March
2023 2024
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
-
Money and debt 6,443 21,436 (21,717) 6,162
Pensions guidance 198 10,397 (10,286) - 309
-
Consumer and energy 5,906 29,924 (29,083) 6,747
Welfare - 20,744 (20,744) - -
- - -
Wales specific services 13,878 (13,878)
Justice 32 11,777 (11,777) - 32
Housing 13 55 (52) - 16
Other 9,286 10,238 (13,887) - 5,637
Total restricted funds 21,878 118,449 (121,424) - 18,903
-
Designated funds 4,369 (1,400) (128) 2,841
Unrestricted funds 21,186 44,528 (43,499) 128 22,343
Pension scheme (35,602) 4,750 (2,338) - (33,190)
Total unrestricted funds (10,047) 49,278 (47,237) - (8,006)
including pension scheme
Total funds 11,831 167,727 (168,661) - 10,897
----- End of picture text -----

Restricted funds represent that funding received with specific restrictions as to what it is spent on. The funds carried forward represent that restricted funding where income has been recognised but where the funds have not yet been spent.

Unrestricted funds represent funding where there is no restriction applied to how the funding is spent. This is split between freely available unrestricted funds and designated funds.

Designated funds represent those unrestricted funds that have been allocated by the board of trustees for technological investment, with a value of £1.9 million (2023: £3.3 million). The remaining £0.9 million (2023: £1.0 million) is a designated fund reserved for tangible and intangible fixed assets which are equal to the net book value of those assets.

The board of trustees has reviewed the reserves policy in the year and has maintained the target range of free reserves as 3 to 6 months of core operating costs. This equals £11.8 million to £23.5 million (2023: £11 million to £21 million). Free reserves are considered to be total unrestricted funds excluding pension reserve, less designated funds.

The pension reserve as at 31 March 2024 was £33.2 million (2023: £35.6 million) and represents the provision in the accounts for future committed payments to a closed defined benefit pension scheme. Further details are in note 23.

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19. Statement of funds – Group and Citizens Advice (continued)

Comparative statement of funds – Group and Citizens Advice:

----- Start of picture text -----
At 1 April Income Expenditure Transfers At 31 March
2022 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
----- End of picture text -----

At 1 April
2022
£’000		 Income
£’000		 Expenditure
£’000		 Transfers
£’000		 At 31 March
2023
£’000
Money and debt 5,872 28,209 (27,638) - 6,443
Pensions guidance 159 10,271 (10,232) - 198
Consumer and energy 3,376 25,359 (22,829) - 5,906
Welfare - 20,100 (20,100) - -
Wales specifc services 7 13,179 (13,186) - -
Justice 34 11,391 (11,393) - 32
Housing 172 8 (167) - 13
Other 1,370 18,793 (10,877) - 9,286
Total restricted funds 10,990 127,310 (116,422) - 21,878
Designated funds 6,192 - (1,365) (458) 4,369
Unrestricted funds 18,768 34,229 (32,269) 458 21,186
Pension scheme (26,285) 4,780 (14,097) - (35,602)
Total unrestricted funds
including pension scheme		 (1,325) 39,009 (47,731) - (10,047)
Total funds 9,665 166,319 (164,153) - 11,831

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20. Analysis of net assets between funds

Group

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Unrestricted Restricted Total
2024 2023 2024 2023 2024 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Fund balances at 31 March 2024 are represented by:
Fixed assets – intangible 436 837 - - 436 837
Fixed assets – tangible assets 446 171 - - 446 171
Current assets 33,205 31,342 24,115 26,457 57,320 57,799
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year (8,472) (6,256) (5,212) (4,532) (13,684) (10,788)
Provisions (33,621) (36,141) - (47) (33,621) (36,188)
Fund balance (8,006) (10,047) 18,903 21,878 10,897 11,831
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Citizens Advice

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Unrestricted Restricted Total
2024 2023 2024 2023 2024 2023
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Fund balances at 31 March 2024 are represented by:
Fixed assets – intangible 436 837 - - 436 837
Fixed assets – tangible assets 446 171 - - 446 171
Current assets 33,193 31,337 24,115 26,457 57,308 57,794
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year (8,460) (6,251) (5,212) (4,532) (13,672) (10,783)
Provisions (33,621) (36,141) - (47) (33,621) (36,188)
Fund balance (8,006) (10,047) 18,903 21,878 10,897 11,831
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21. Local Citizens Advice network

The financial statements record the income and expenditure of Citizens Advice. Individual local Citizens Advice network members are not consolidated within these accounts as they are independent legal entities funded directly and indirectly from their own sources and are accountable to their own members and funding bodies.

22. Operating lease commitments

At 31 March 2024 Citizens Advice and the Group were committed to making the following minimum payments in respect of non-cancellable operating leases:

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2024 2023
Land and Other Land and Other
buildings buildings
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Within 1 year 694 5 1,985 23
Between 2 and 5 years 1,427 - 397 -
- - - -
After 5 years
Total operating lease commitments 2,121 5 2,382 23
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At the end of the year there were capital commitments of £nil (2023: £nil).

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23. Pension scheme

National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux Pension and Assurance Plan (1991)

Citizens Advice is the principal employer of a defined benefit scheme ('the Plan') in the UK which provides both pensions in retirement and death benefits to members. Pension benefits are related to the members' final salaries at retirement and their length of service at the date they retired or left pensionable service. The Plan closed to future accrual on 31 March 2008. The Plan also contains some money purchased additional voluntary contributions and protected rights funds, which are not included in these disclosures.

The Plan is a registered scheme under UK legislation. The Plan is subject to the scheme funding requirements outlined in UK legislation. The Plan is governed by the Plan's Trust Deed and Rules dated 4 April 2011. The Trustee is responsible for the operation and the governance of the Plan, including making decisions regarding the Plan's funding investment strategy (although they are required to consult the Principal Employer).

In accordance with the schedule of contributions in force over the 2023 to 2024 accounting year, the combined contributions to the Plan from Citizens Advice and other participating employers for the year ended 31 March 2024 were £5,218,000. This includes £4,918,000 towards the deficit, of which £4,750,000 relates to Citizens Advice, along with £300,000 as an allowance for administration expenses and all scheme levies, payable by Citizens Advice.

An FRS 102 actuarial valuation of the Plan was carried out on 31 March 2024 by a qualified independent actuary. Based upon membership data as at 31 March 2022, allowing for assumed membership movements over the period from this date, as well as any material membership movements significantly different from those assumed (for example, transfers out).

The most recent formal actuarial valuation of the Plan was at 31 March 2022 and revealed a funding deficit of £53,536,000. In the recovery plan agreed following the valuation, Citizens Advice and the other participating employers agreed to pay deficit funding contributions of £2,918,000 per annum with

a view to eliminating the deficit by 30 September 2040. Of this, £2,750,000 relates to Citizens Advice along with £300,000 as an allowance for administration expenses and all scheme levies.

If Citizens Advice pays its annual contributions of £2,750,000 using an actuarial discount rate of 4.9% (2023: 4.8%) the net present value would be £33,190,631 (2023: £35,602,38). This is included in the balance sheet as a provision (as per note 17) and as a negative pension reserve (as per note 19).

The liabilities of the Plan are based on the current value of expected benefit payment cash flows to members of the Plan over the next 60 or more years. The average duration of the liabilities is approximately 11 years.

The Plan is exposed to actuarial risks such as market (investment) risk, interest rate risk, inflation risk, currency risk and longevity risk.

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23. Pension scheme (continued)

Present values of scheme liabilities, fair value of assets and defined benefit asset (liability)

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31 March 2024 31 March 2023
£’000 £’000
Fair value of plan assets 60,594 60,745
Present value of defined benefit obligation 107,082 111,169
(Deficit) in plan (46,488) (50,424)
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The major assumptions used by the actuary were (in nominal terms) as follows:

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Assumptions
Discount rate 4.90% 4.80%
Inflation assumption (RPI) 3.20% 3.30%
Inflation assumption (CPI) 2.80% 2.85%
Assumed life expectancies on retirement at
age 65 are:
Retiring today – Males 20.6 20.8
Retiring today – Females 23.4 23.6
Retiring in 20 years' time – Males 21.8 22
Retiring in 20 years' time – Females 24.5 24.7
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24. Contingent liabilities

The NACAB Pension and Assurance Plan (1991) trustees are seeking clarification from the court on issues related to the Plan to resolve an uncertainty. As is standard in such proceedings, the charity (as the scheme's principal employer) acts as Defendant, but in practice seeks the same outcome as the Trustee. The case is not expected to be heard until 2025 and the financial impact remains uncertain depending on the outcome. In the event of an unsuccessful ruling the future deficit contributions payable to the Plan by the charity could be renegotiated by a material amount.

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25. Related party transactions

Citizens Advice Limited is a subsidiary company owned by Citizens Advice and all Citizens Advice non-charitable trading is conducted through it. The directors are the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, Matthew Swindells, Lucinda Bell and Michele Shambrook. During the year ended 31 March 2024, it made a surplus before qualifying charitable donation and tax of £828 (2023: £34,110). The company incurred a tax charge of £3,053 (2023: £4,882), resulting in a net loss after tax of £2,225 (2023: £29,228 surplus).

At 31 March 2024, Citizens Advice Limited (company number 1652053) owed £14,879 to Citizens Advice (2023: £53,096). The accounts for the year ended 31 March 2024 were approved on 24 July 2024.

Citizens Advice International is a company which was registered in Belgium on 6 December 2004. Although not a related party under FRS 102, it is included here due to the connection of name and objectives. It was established to provide support to Citizens Advice organisations throughout the world. No charge has been made for any expenditure incurred by Citizens Advice on behalf of Citizens Advice International during the year. On 31 March 2024, Citizens Advice

owed Citizens Advice International £nil (2023: £nil). Citizens Advice International is not consolidated into the accounts as it is a separate entity and Citizens Advice does not have the power to control it.

NACAB Pension Trustees Limited is a company limited by guarantee and is the corporate Trustee of the NACAB Pension and Assurance Plan (1991). Citizens Advice is the sole member of this company. This subsidiary was incorporated on 14 February 2017. There were no financial transactions or balances in the year to 31 March 2024 (2023: £nil).

The standing orders for trustee board recruitment require that at least 3 of our trustees must have local Citizens Advice expertise. As such, 2 of the trustees of Citizens Advice in the year to 31 March 2024 also had roles at a local Citizens Advice. Jonathan Mogford is Vice-Chair of Citizens Advice Wandsworth. Steve Hughes was COO at Citizens Advice SORT Group until December 2023 and is no longer employed by a local Citizens Advice. We have assessed that these do not create disclosable related party transactions, as in their Citizens Advice trustee role they are one of many trustees, and do not individually have sufficient influence over the direction of Citizens Advice.

The only other transactions with related entities in the year have been disclosed in note 4.

26. Company limited by guarantee

Citizens Advice is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. All local Citizens Advice are members of Citizens Advice and there are no other members. The maximum liability of each member is limited to £1. The trustees have no liability.

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Appendix 1

Listed below are all the local Citizens Advice charities which have been the beneficiaries of grants payable by national Citizens Advice as summarised in note 5a:

Arun & Chichester Citizens Advice

Barnet Citizens Advice Barnsley Citizens Advice Barrow-In-Furness Citizens Advice Basingstoke Citizens Advice Bassetlaw Citizens Advice Bath and North East Somerset Citizens Advice Bedford & District Citizens Advice Bedworth, Rugby and Nuneaton Citizens Advice Bexley Borough Citizens Advice Bureau Ltd Blackpool Citizens Advice Bridgend County Borough Citizens Advice Bridport and District Citizens Advice Brighton and Hove Citizens Advice Bromley Citizens Advice Bureau Ltd Burnley and Pendle Citizens Advice Bury & Bolton Citizens Advice Cylch Conwy District CAB Cambridge and District Citizens Advice Bureau Camden Citizens Advice Bureau Canolfan Cynghori Ynys Mon Citizens Advice Canterbury District Citizens Advice Bureau Cardiff and Vale Citizens Advice Carlisle and Eden Districts Citizens Advice

Carmarthenshire Citizens Advice Central & East Northamptonshire Chapeltown Citizens Advice Charnwood Citizens Advice Cheshire East Citizens Advice Chesterfield Citizens Advice Citizens Advice 1066 Citizens Advice Allerdale Citizens Advice Ashfield Citizens Advice Birmingham Citizens Advice Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Citizens Advice Bradford and Airedale and Bradford Law Centre Citizens Advice Braintree and South Essex Citizens Advice Brent Citizens Advice Bristol Citizens Advice Bromsgrove & Redditch Citizens Advice Broxtowe Citizens Advice Buckinghamshire Citizens Advice Caerphilly Blaenau Gwent Citizens Advice Calderdale Citizens Advice Central Dorset Citizens Advice Chelmsford Citizens Advice Cheshire West Citizens Advice Cornwall

Citizens Advice County Durham Citizens Advice Dacorum Citizens Advice Darlington, Redcar & Cleveland Citizens Advice Denbighshire Citizens Advice Derbyshire Districts Citizens Advice Doncaster Borough Citizens Advice Dudley & Wolverhampton Citizens Advice East Berkshire Citizens Advice East Hampshire Limited Citizens Advice East Herts Citizens Advice East Lancashire Citizens Advice East Suffolk Ltd Citizens Advice Elmbridge (West) Citizens Advice Esher & District Citizens Advice Essex

Citizens Advice Gateshead Citizens Advice Gosport Citizens Advice Halton Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham Citizens Advice Harlow Citizens Advice Hart District Ltd Citizens Advice Havant Citizens Advice Hillingdon Citizens Advice in North & West Kent

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Citizens Advice Leeds

Citizens Advice Leicestershire Citizens Advice Leighton Linslade Citizens Advice Lindsey Citizens Advice Liverpool Citizens Advice Manchester Citizens Advice Medway Citizens Advice Merton & Lambeth Citizens Advice Mid Lincolnshire Citizens Advice Mid Mercia Citizens Advice Mole Valley Citizens Advice Newcastle Citizens Advice North East Lincolnshire Citizens Advice North Hertfordshire Citizens Advice North Lancashire Citizens Advice North Lincolnshire Citizens Advice North Somerset Citizens Advice North Yorkshire Citizens Advice Northumberland Citizens Advice Nottingham & District Citizens Advice Portsmouth Citizens Advice Reading Citizens Advice Reigate & Banstead Limited Citizens Advice Rural Cambs Citizens Advice Salford Citizens Advice Sandwell & Walsall Citizens Advice Sefton Citizens Advice Services Corby & Kettering

Citizens Advice Sherwood & Newark

Citizens Advice Shropshire Citizens Advice Solihull Borough Citizens Advice Somerset Citizens Advice Sort Group Citizens Advice South East Staffordshire Citizens Advice South Gloucestershire Citizens Advice South Hams Citizens Advice South Lincolnshire Citizens Advice South Warwickshire Citizens Advice South West Surrey Citizens Advice Southend Citizens Advice St Albans District Citizens Advice Staffordshire South West Citizens Advice Stevenage Citizens Advice Stroud & Cotswold Districts Limited Citizens Advice Sunderland Citizens Advice Surrey Heath Citizens Advice Sutton Citizens Advice Swale Citizens Advice Swansea Neath Port Talbot Limited Citizens Advice Teignbridge Citizens Advice Torfaen Citizens Advice Watford Citizens Advice Waverley Citizens Advice West Northamptonshire and Cherwell Citizens Advice West Oxfordshire (Witney) Citizens Advice West Suffolk

Citizens Advice Westminster

Citizens Advice Wigan Borough Citizens Advice Winchester District Citizens Advice Wirral Citizens Advice Wokingham Citizens Advice Worcester & Herefordshire Copeland District Citizens Advice Coventry Citizens Advice Croydon Citizens Advice Bureau Cyngor Ar Bopeth Ceredigion Citizens Advice Cyngor ar Bopeth Gwynedd Citizens Advice Diss, Thetford & District Citizens Advice Dover, Deal & District Citizens Advice East Dorset & Purbeck Citizens Advice East End Citizens Advice Bureau Eastbourne Citizens Advice Eastleigh Citizens Advice

Edenbridge & Westerham Citizens Advice Enfield Citizens Advice

Epping Forest District Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell Citizens Advice Exeter Citizens Advice Fareham Citizens Advice Flintshire Citizens Advice Greenwich District Citizens Advice Bureau Haringey District Citizens Advice Bureaux Harrow Citizens Advice Hartlepool Citizens Advice

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Havering Citizens Advice Bureau Hertsmere Citizens Advice Bureau Hounslow District Citizens Advice Bureau Hull and East Riding Citizens Advice Bureau Ipswich & District Citizens Advice Kensington & Chelsea Citizens Advice Bureau Kirklees Citizens Advice and Law Centre Knowsley District Citizens Advice Lancashire Citizens Advice Lewisham Citizens Advice Bureau Luton Citizens Advice Maidstone Citizens Advice Maldon Citizens Advice Mansfield Citizens Advice Merthyr Tydfil Citizens Advice Mid Suffolk Citizens Advice Middlesbrough Citizens Advice Milton Keynes District Citizens Advice Bureau Monmouthshire County Citizens Advice New Forest Citizens Advice Bureau Newport Citizens Advice Ltd Newport Isle of Wight Citizens Advice Norfolk Citizens Advice North & West Gloucestershire Citizens Advice North East Derbyshire Citizens Advice North Tyneside Citizens Advice Bureau North Warwickshire Citizens Advice Oxford Citizens Advice Bureau

Oxfordshire South & Vale Citizens Advice Pembrokeshire Citizens Advice Peterborough Citizens Advice Plymouth Citizens Advice Powys Citizens Advice Preston Citizens Advice RCJ Advice Redbridge Citizens Advice Rhondda Cynon Taff Citizens Advice Richmond Borough Citizens Advice Bureau Rotherham & District Citizens Advice Rushmoor Citizens Advice Bureau Rutland Citizens Advice Sheffield Citizens Advice and Law Centre South Lakes Citizens Advice South Tyneside Citizens Advice South Worcestershire Citizens Advice Southampton Citizens Advice Bureau Southwark Citizens Advice Bureau St Helens Citizens Advice Staffordshire North and Stoke-on-Trent Citizens Advice Stockton & District Citizens Advice & Information Service Sudbury & District Citizens Advice Swindon Citizens Advice Tadley Citizens Advice Tameside District Citizens Advice Tandridge Citizens Advice Telford & The Wrekin Citizens Advice

Tendring Citizens Advice Bureau Test Valley Citizens Advice Three Rivers Citizens Advice Bureau Torbay Citizens Advice Bureau Torridge, North, Mid and West Devon Citizens Advice Uttlesford Citizens Advice Wakefield District Citizens Advice Bureau Waltham Forest Citizens Advice Bureau Wandsworth Citizens Advice Warrington District Citizens Advice Bureau Wealden District Citizens Advice West Sussex (North,South,East) Wiltshire Citizens Advice Wrexham Citizens Advice Wyre Forest Citizens Advice York & District Citizens Advice

Citizens Advice Annual Report and Accounts 2023–2024 113

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