This study analyzed the impact of advice services provided by Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) in Bath and North East Somerset. - 80 CAB clients were interviewed longitudinally over 12-18 months to understand how CAB advice impacted their situations. CAB notes were also analyzed. - A social return on investment (SROI) approach was used to calculate monetary values for outcomes like debts resolved, benefits gained, and improvements to mental health and relationships. - The SROI analysis found over £500,000 in financial and social value generated for clients over 5 years, indicating that CAB advice provides high return on investment to improve clients' lives and reduce costs to other public services. - The study provides implications for how advice services

1. Proving the value of advice:
A study of the impact of Bath and North East
Somerset Citizens Advice Bureau services
Michelle Farr¹, Peter Cressey¹, Sue Milner², Nick
Abercrombie¹ and Beth Jaynes¹
Department of Social and Policy Sciences¹,
Politics, Languages & International Studies (PoLIS)²
South West Forum Event 14th
April 2014

2. Context
House of Commons Public Administration Committee
“Hull city council put its advice services contract out to
tender … (an) effective citizens advice bureau in Hull
lost its funding …The essence of why A4e won the
competition was that the commissioners
responsible for sorting out that contracting
opportunity were not able to place any value on all
the aspects of the citizens advice bureau beyond
the simple provision of advice from adviser to
individual” (1).
(1)http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/902/9
0208.htm#n178

3. Context for advice services
• Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx) facing a ‘double whammy’
• reduced funding sources and increasing client numbers (Morris & Barr, 2013)
• Advice service funding is increasingly insecure due to cuts in legal
funding and local authority budgets (Hynes 2013)
• Unprecedented changes within the welfare system
• Complexity of benefit issues often requires specialist advice to resolve (Morris
and Barr 2013)
• Correlations found between suicide rates and financial problems
(Jacoby, 2002), suicidal thoughts and debt strongly associated
(Meltzer et al, 2010).
• Evidence on socio-economic inequalities in health suggest that
enabling access to material, social and financial resources should
result in improved health (Haighton et al 2012)

4. Previous studies
• Jones (2009): 3 year longitudinal study of 149 clients found total
benefit of £92.6K benefits, £374.5K debt; improved health and
wellbeing
• Debt: Orton (2010) notes estimate of £1k cost to society of each
individual debt problem; positive outcomes for 72% of CAB clients
• Wiggan & Talbot (2006) review of literature on benefits advice:
take-up is sub-optimal and advice can boost take-up with positive
outcomes; high impact and improved wellbeing (see also CAB
review, 2012)
• Difficulties of quantitative measurement are widely acknowledged...
(e.g. Allmark et al, 2013; Williams, 2004). Coventry study
suggested gain of £9 for £1 invested (NEF, 2010; Williams, 2004)
• CAB sample of 3000 clients (2011) found gain of £3,271 per client

5. Aim: To understand, measure and value the
long term impact of CAB services
• Previous research studies in advice have tended to use non-
financial client evaluations of outcomes or short-term direct
financial benefit of advice.
This research analyses:
• The cause and impact of the problem before a client came to the
CAB
• What has happened through the giving of advice
• Outcomes and impact of the advice both for the client and any
wider outcomes for the household or other agencies such as the
state, employers etc.
• Aim to financialise and give monetary values to the outcomes of
advice

6. Research methods
• Co-produced research with trained and supervised CAB
volunteers
• Volunteers involved in client recruitment, study design,
interviewing clients and analysing data
• 80 clients took part in a qualitative longitudinal study to
understand changes over 12-18 months
• Client interviews and additional quantitative measures to
analyse client mental well-being using the Warwick
Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS Short)
• Clients consented to allow researchers to access CAB
notes on their advice services
• Financialisation of outcomes using adapted social return
on investment (SROI) approach

7. Strengths of the data collected
• 80 clients interviewed
• previous studies in advice have interviewed 4 (NEF 2010); 10
(Windle et al 2010); and 30 planned (Haighton et al 2012)
• Longitudinal quantitative and qualitative data from
clients enhanced by CAB advice notes
• 80 impact maps for clients created from analysis of this
data, mapping outcomes, attribution, drop off and
deadweight.
• Qualitative and quantitative data that explored the
personal impact of problems, and why the advice made/
did not make a difference – perspectives from both
client and CAB

8. SROI and advice services
• Complexity of client’s situation, complexity of
service, complexity of outcomes
• Bespoke nature of advice services in comparison
with generic services to all clients
• SROI methodological complexity associated with
range of client specific outcomes
• 260 different outcomes for our client group with diverse values
• CAB differentiates between financial outcome
types so we developed disaggregated SROI ratio.
• Further set of findings to inform service redesign
and development

9. Applying SROI to clients’ experiences
• Client 20 had a degenerative long term health condition.
She could no longer work, her business ceased trading.
“I had no money, I tried to survive for two years”.
• CAB supported benefit application
• What would have happened without the CAB:
“I don’t know, I really don’t know. I would have been in dire
straits, I would have lost my house”.
• CAB helped her to manage and reschedule her debts
• Debt outcomes are not included as they occurred before
the period of the project. Nor are the full value of
benefits (e.g. ESA) included as some of these occurred
previously.

10. Type of outcome value NPV for 5 years
Financial gain (Debts written off) £110,613
Financial gain (Income gained) £205,615
Financial gain (Income gain following repayments rescheduled) £41,654
Financial gain (Debts wrongly charged) £2,254
Financial gain (Re-imbursement or service or loan) £77,666
Other (improved relationship, housing, sleep, employment or volunteering gained) £29,731
Prevention (of depression, homelessness, bailiffs, utilities disconnected, hospitalisation) £40,533
Grand Total £508,066
Net present value of outcomes for 80 clients
over 5 years
Original financial value source Sum of value
Client actual £327,602
Client estimate £68,414
Proxy average local (BANES) £19,881
Proxy average national £74,939
Proxy Unit based £17,231
Grand Total £508,066

12. Policy implications
• Advice mitigates the adverse effects of welfare reform
• 20% of the client sample sought advice to appeal decisions about
Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and Disability Living
Allowance (DLA).
• At least 75% of these ESA appeals and 67% of DLA appeals were
successful, alleviating the pressures of poverty for people in times
of ill-health or disability.
• Advice services occupy an important strategic position in
the health and social care system
• In the context of austerity, reducing funding/ coverage of
advice services to save money runs the risk of higher
costs to the public purse. Advice can prevent further costs

13. Practical implications
• Demand among some of the most vulnerable clients for
more systematic and intensive follow-up of their cases
• More tailored approach to clients’ needs
• Additional support for some clients to implement advice
where needed
• A reduction in the ‘social distance’ between the client
and the Bureau
• Further linking with health and social care services

14. Conclusions
• Considerable complexity in applying SROI to advice
services and wider casework organisations
• Importance of evidencing prevention (homelessness,
depression, suicidal feelings)
• Development of SROI to advice
• Using actuals rather than averages
• Differentiating between different types of value
• Combination of CAB’s financial reporting categories with SROI
concepts e.g. attribution, deadweight, duration, drop-off, NPV
• What SROI does not include
• Outcomes according to advice domains, multiple theories of
change
• Full report: http://southwestforum.org.uk/advice-study