Community Story: Citizens Advice Mid Lincolnshire

Our next Community Story takes us to Mid-Lincolnshire, where the local Citizens Advice team works hard to give advice to over 100 people each week, many of whom have multiple and complex issues. Citizens Advice Mid Lincolnshire has recently benefited from a grant from National Grid’s Community Matters Fund (Fuel Poverty) to support their work this Winter Our Head of Communications Luke Upton, spoke to Louise Buckingham CEO about the impact they are having in their community and what this grants means to them.

Luke Upton (LU): Thank you for speaking to me today. Could we start by you telling us some more about the community you serve in Mid Lincolnshire? And why your support is needed. 

Louise Buckingham (LB): Always happy to talk Luke, no problem at all. Citizens Advice Mid Lincolnshire provides free, confidential, independent and impartial advice to all residents in North Kesteven and Boston Borough. Our aim is to help everyone find a way forward, no matter what problem they face. Our team has in-depth knowledge on subjects including benefits, debt, housing, employment and family. This gives us an insight into the issues clients are facing and policies that are affecting them unfairly enabling us to influence decision makers to change policies and practices. People need our support to navigate through the increasing cost of living.  Many of our clients are presenting with negative budgets and have fallen behind with energy bills. Research has found 1 in 4 people are so worried about increases in energy costs this winter that they say they will be forced to turn off their heating and hot water.  

LU: Thanks Louise, what in particular has been your particular focus in recent years?

LB: Over recent years we have been focused on helping our communities through the increasing cost of living.  This has included advice relating to debt and money management, income maximisation via benefit applications and grants, and energy saving tips. 

LU:  You’ve just received funding from the Community Matters Fund from National Grid and Localgiving. Can you tell us some more about the project it will help fund and what it aims to deliver.

LB: The Energy Well project aims to reduce household bills energy bills whilst maximising income and assisting with financial capability.  Support will focus on improving energy knowledge (including net Zero), whilst empowering participants to make changes within the home to reduce their energy consumption.  The result of which will save them money whilst reducing their carbon footprint. We’d like to say a big thank you to National Grid and Localgiving for their fantastic support.

LU:  How important is this kind of funding to your organisation?

LB: This funding is extremely important to our organisation.  We are a small, independent local charity that is reliant on grants such as this to allow our service to continue.  The funding enables us to cover staff costs and to continue to provide specialist energy advice at a time that it is needed most. It’s greatly appreciated!

LU: We always like to ask, more money aside, what would help you most? 

LB: We are always on the lookout for volunteers to join our team.  We rely on our wonderful local volunteers to keep our services running.  At the moment 46% of our team are volunteers. Without volunteers we wouldn’t be able to offer our services at the level we do.  

We are currently looking for volunteers to complete the following roles: Initial Checker, Adviser, Digital Adviser, Research and campaigns and Fundraisers. If someone is interested in finding out more about our volunteer opportunities, they can contact us via recruitment@citizensadvicemidlincs.org.uk 

LU: Great, thank you, we look forward to hearing from you again soon!

Read more about the work of Citizens Advice Mid Lincolnshire here.