Woking Borough Council (WBC) has decided to allocate Citizens Advice Woking (CAW) £30,000 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, only five per cent of the total available to the council for 2024-25. The council says this is to support CAW to move to a more sustainable business model and secure funding from alternative sources.

In addition, WBC has decided not to make any payment towards the funding CAW has received in previous years towards its core work of supporting the residents in the borough who need it the most. The outcome is a reduction in CAW’s annual income of just under £160,000, which will inevitably have a very significant impact on the service CAW can deliver in the borough from April 2024.

The team at CAW have demonstrated to WBC the difference its work makes to the clients it supports: over 7,000 in total, ten per cent of the Woking adult population in 2023-24, 70 per cent of whom are vulnerable. There is no other voluntary organisation in the borough that that will deliver the successful outcomes for clients that CAW does.

Without the support of WBC, CAW must make some difficult decisions about what services it will be able to deliver.

Laurence Oates, chair of trustees, said: “Although no final decisions have yet been made, we are having to decide, for instance, whether we will be able to open our town centre office for a drop-in service, and whether we can continue to run our outreach sessions in Byfleet and Sheerwater.”

The demand for CAW’s services has continued to increase, due to the cost-of-living crisis, and it is already a struggle to keep up with demand with a team of 70 volunteers and 18 paid staff.

“The trustees are working really hard to identify alternative sources of funding, at very short notice,” said Laurence. 

“A decision to drastically reduce the size of the team is the last thing we want to do, but it may be a short-term necessity to enable the continuation of some sort of service for Woking residents, until additional funding can be secured.”