This members only website for any Local Citizens Advice services Chief Officer who would like to share ideas and experiences with others and offer mutual support. If you are a CEO who would like to join – click the button to the right 🙂

Seizing the moment for change…

Local CA services working together to safeguard our futures – learning from the pandemic and pooling resources and ideas

This Website has all the information you need to stay up to date with good practice and best ideas of how local services have worked  to respond to the challenges of providing services that are digital by default (remote working). Our work is in line with Alistair Cromwell’s (Interim CEO) comments in the closing plenary at the 2020 AGM online where he noted the following key points:

• The need to continue to transform our service as we come through the pandemic, working together so we can help more people and expand our delivery channels
• The importance of partnership working – both locally and nationally
• The ongoing challenge of meeting more demand by increasing our capacity and  ensuring that we have inclusive access to our services 
• An ongoing and shared commitment to focus on equality, diversity and inclusion across the service
• The need to move more quickly on some of the big delivery challenges – for example, decisions on investing in technology – to enable us to support the new channels for clients
• How we can help secure financial sustainability, including showing funders the huge benefit of a community-based service with a supporting national network and infrastructure and how effectively the service has adapted and responded during the pandemic

During weekly discussions in our network for local CA service Chief Officers it was decided that a group of us would like to work on seizing the moment for change and sharing ideas and good practice on how local services are being transformed due to new ways of working as a consequence of the pandemic. The group is open for any local service CEO to join in (the more the merrier) and you don’t have to be on Workplace or join in the weekly network call to be part of the group.

It was evident that many of us were approaching the same challenges and exploring the same ideas and solutions and thereby involved in duplication of effort and that pooling resources and ideas would be a very positive step.  It was also a concern that some issues – for instance, use of video calls – had led to a multiplicity of approaches which could lead to confusion and a lack of consistency in client services.  Finally, as the group originated from a shared endeavour for mutual support of mental health and wellbeing during the pandemic it was very clear that working in partnership with colleagues from throughout the network who had a similar approach and vision would help us all to avoid unnecessary stress at a critical time for our services – both local and national.

It is a members only site, so if you want to join or find out more, please email us using the contact form in the menu at the top of the screen

Thank you