Worth your weight in gold?

Webchat contract extended

We received news this week that the Integrated Digital Money Advice pilot has been extended. Particularly pleasing was that the partnership of Cardiff &The Vale and Torfaen CAB's were recognised as one of the highest quality in this delivery and were awarded with 2 posts (most others got 1) extended until March 2015. Andrea will therefore be working on this more or less full time until then.

Case study

A good story this week about a gentleman with health issues, cognitive impairment and had undergone brain surgery. He asked us for help dealing with non priority debts. Token offers were made and accepted for 3 debts, and on 2 others we challenged the liability on the client’s behalf, stressing the timescales and severe health problems. We are pleased to report that after our involvement the creditors, one of which was HMRC, with debts totaling £10,000, agreed to waive any further action and were not pursuing the recovery. 

Our wonderful Volunteers

For me biggest change in the Bureau in the last few years has been that more and more people are choosing to come and volunteer with us. From as few as a dozen we are now more than a 60 strong group of generous and talented volunteers that are making a huge difference to the people of Torfaen, not least because we are now open almost twice as long as we were back in 2012. As well as our wonderful Volunteers we also have Dave to thank for the great job he has done nurturing this increasingly skilled team.

Our Volunteers are the heart of our Bureau and without you we would not be able deliver our more specialist projects or perhaps even open at all. In short it would not be possible without you. The generous, professional and caring service you provide to our clients cannot easily be expressed but it is worth noting that the value of the time you collectively donate each year can be estimated at around £200,000. The equivalent of 10 full time staff.

If you go on to calculate the effect on the Torfaen economy of our work we can estimate that we inject or prevent leakage of around £12m annually in benefit gains and debt management. Because most of this money will be spent very locally and very quickly, the effect of the economic multiplier means that every £1 we add to the local economy is worth around £1.58 taking into account the employment that spending generates and the effect on the profits of local suppliers. Therefore the overall stimulus to the Torfaen economy of Torfaen CAB, backed by its Volunteers, will be worth around £19m. 

So 10 people with an average UK weight of 75kg = 750kg. Gold is currently around £25,000 a kilo = £18.75m. 

Worth MORE than your weight in gold!



Mal

Diary Dates

Next Team meeting 26 Nov 1pm