Guardian
Friday 4 September 2009 10.36 BST

The Citizens Advice Bureau is handling 9,300 new debt cases each day

Record numbers of cash-strapped consumers are contacting Citizens Advice for help with recession-related problems such as debt and redundancy, new figures reveal today.

The charity is now handling around 9,300 new debt cases and talking to 8,000 people with benefit problems every working day as the economic downturn continues to take its toll.

Debt problems shot up by 27% and queries about welfare benefits soared by 22% in the three months to the end of June, compared with the same period the previous year.

The charity's offices in England and Wales received a total of just under 1.7 million enquiries during the second quarter, 17% more than a year earlier.

Within the total, Citizens Advice said enquiries about job seekers' allowance had doubled, while redundancy-related problems were up by three-quarters due to rising unemployment. It has also seen a 44% rise in the number of people with mortgage arrears and a 53% jump in the number of people struggling to pay their fuel bills.

The figures were released today to mark the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the group. Citizens Advice said it spent its first decade helping people with war-related problems, such as tracing missing relatives and getting fair shares of rationing.

Since the turn of the millennium demand for specialist money advice had mushroomed, it claimed, as the credit boom led to rising numbers of people having increasingly complex debt problems.

The group's 27,000 staff - mainly volunteers - now handle around six million problems a year, and half of the population has used the service at some point in their lives.

David Harker, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: "From rationing to recession, the CAB has been there for people in times of crisis throughout the past 70 years. Dipping into the decades of our history shows that some of the problems people have may have changed but the need for our service certainly has not. As we celebrate our 70th birthday our new figures show that what started out as an emergency service in wartime is needed now more than ever as the recession continues to take its toll on people's lives."


article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/sep/04/debt-advice-welfare-recession

Fluff........

The Citizens Advice Bureau figures do point to a growing concern on credit defaults and with the job market stagnated and unemployment ranging from scholars, higher earners and experienced trade operatives things are starting to get difficult.

Along with the Government DEBT more pressure of a pending hefty insolvency rate could kick start the depression and inevitably social problems.. all pretty sad and could of been avoided!!