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Each day I try to find the time to look through the Citizens Advice Bureau Spain twitter account. At least once a week we note and are proud to find that yet another Citizens Advice Bureau Uk office is following us. Today Though I noted a new CAB UK follower, I was somehow touched and what I saw was something that I hope that in time, can be replicated here in Spain but only once we have in place contact centres in all regions .
My first reaction in finding that we had ‘CABShrubs’, (Wormwood Scrubs prison London) twitter following us was surprise which slowly turned into a feeling of awe, compassion and respect. I had no idea that CAB UK had also set up prison offices and that there were wonderful people out there who would put judgement aside and let consideration take over. There are millions of prisoners around the world serving their sentences for the crimes they have committed. I feel that we are not here to adjudicate as a qualified judge has already done so. noting the description ‘Full Service CAB serving inmates and staff at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Part of Kensington and Chelsea CAB’ I begun to read the tweets.
‘That there is a ‘ban on books for prisoner’ which for educational purposes they wish to overturn’.
‘That Chris Grayling plans network of mental health centres in prisons’
A video from Oldham CAB with the history of these offices going back to 1940.
A tweet about ‘pay as you go energy the pros and cons’.
About Wandsworth jail where four men have taken their own lives, had 427 prison officers in 2010 but only 260 this June, to manage 1,634 prisoners.
I learned that; from 1 October of this year, car owners in the UK would no longer need to display their paper tax disc on vehicles. That they could remove the current discs, That though you must continue to tax your car, new technology such as number plates recognition, now allows the authorities to check whether a vehicle is taxed without the disc having to be displayed. Interesting for our nonresident Britons and those returning to the UK. That when you sell a vehicle, the tax won’t be transferrable. You’ll automatically get a refund for any time you’ve got left to run. (brought images of how difficult it can be here in Spain when either purchasing a second hand vehicle or changing ownership).
But equally as important, it lead me to information about the worth of CAB UK and the subject of the value of our organisation, CAB Spain. The team have discussed this matter behind closed doors and have often wondered if there is a general gratitude being reflected for our services? I noted the vast numbers of volunteers and advisors within the CAB UK and the difficulty we have had in arousing interest within the expat community for these places here.
The team: We are all volunteers who do not receive wages for what we do and the hours we put in. We are dependent on donations for expenses, costs and sponsorship for what is a complicated and interactive website. I accept that we are ‘new kids on the block’ with only a very small team. Though the team is being stretched often working all hours and weekends, does not stop our plans for expansion being aware of the obvious need of a CAB Spain.
Here is a little information about CAB UK commencing with a snippet on just some of the vacancies for paid posts on offer this month:
Vacancy Information: Service Implementation Officer. Service Quality Officer. Service Officers and more posts available.
It struck me what a huge organisation ands how successful CAB UK are. Within their Citizens Advice Bureau they have a dynamic project management team responsible for delivering a large debt advice project, which involves around 330 debt advisers who are based in 140 advice agencies across England and Wales. This department alone has an annual budget of over £24 million, to work with the advice agencies to deliver free, quality debt advice to people that need it. This does not include all the other necessary areas of advice.
Noting the large numbers of personnel and funds available in just one department, had me investigating further. I discovered these facts:
The overwhelming figures below which include the funding of CAB UK and the financial benefits given to the community had me considering CAB Spain financial situation. With funding of only around 3000 euro donated to us since we registered as an NPO. We have made calculations discovering that we have worth to date of over 300.000 euros to the community not including our hours. We are not faced with the same amount of members or dependents as CAB UK but then we are not celebrating our 75 years in existence as is CAB UK. We are barely 18 months old. We can be considered as just one small office with over 12000 members on Facebook alone. That does not include those who turn to us for help and assistance from Spain and abroad by those in need who find us on the internet..
The figures have assisted me personally to not only realise our worth, but that from hereon, CAB Spain will be more aggressive in looking for funding. After all this funding will be used to help you the members. Remember that we rely on your benevolence.
This is the scale of CAB UK. Emily Jeffrey Senior Campaigns officer posted: “When you become a campaigner for Citizens Advice the scale of everything seems to increase exponentially. You might be used to tackling one problem at a time but suddenly you’re faced with 6.6 million. That’s the number of problems we dealt with in 2012/13. You might have been focused on trying to resolve one specific problem for one specific group of people. Now you find yourself working on the combined problems of 2.1 million people. It can be pretty overwhelming when you think about the sheer scale of it.
There are other, even bigger, numbers to get to grips with too. There’s the £750 million we have calculated our service to be worth to society. That’s a pretty good return on the £217 million total the Citizens Advice service received in funding that year. And there are the £110 million worth of hours contributed by our generous volunteers across England and Wales. But our impact reaches beyond those who come to us directly for help. Eight million people have benefited from the policy changes we have successfully campaigned for like better protection for people who take out pay day loans, more support for childcare costs and tougher rules for bailiffs. That means 8 million fewer people walking through our doors because their crisis has been averted by earlier interventions”.
Taking in the description by Emily Jeffrey and though we may just be a small seed at present, we can relate. the CAB Spain has grown at an inconceivable rate in such a short time. Please note that the information we provide is based on fact and not plucked out of the air, copied from newspapers, found on a forum or even taken from professionals. We have to say again that we have a great group of members. We are like a small town with 12500 members to date coexisting in an amicable way. This is a very good sign.
Would like to take this opportunity to wish CAB UK
A HAPPY 75TH BIRTHDAY.
@Myra. If you have benefited from the website or received some helpful advice, then please DONATE! 
