Fermanagh Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) held a special annual general meeting last week which marked the organisation’s fortieth anniversary.

Established on May 23, 1976, Fermanagh CAB has witnessed and guided locals through decades of financial turbulence and economic fluctuations. 

Siobhan Peoples has been Manager of Fermanagh CAB for the past 20 years. 
She said: “Since 1976, Fermanagh CAB has always been a pro-active organisation and we have worked hard over the years to develop from being a generalist advice service to an organisation offering specialist advice, enabling us to effectively assist those in our community with difficulties they face.”

She explained that Fermanagh CAB regularly works in partnership with foodbanks in Fermanagh, the Western Trust, the public Health Agency, Tax Help for Older People, HMRC, St. Vincent de Paul, the Centre for Cross Border Studies and Advice NI. Going forward, Fermanagh CAB will work closely with Omagh Independent Advice Services in order to work within the new proposed funding arrangements set up by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council. 

Ms. Peoples and the other six staff are looking forward to being able to move from annual letters of offer to three-year service level agreements with the Council, which will allow them to plan more effectively for the future. 

The rural outreach programme, which began in 1996 and saw a staff member travelling to 10 locations around the county, was suspended in 2014 due to a lack of funding. 

The new Rural Development Programme will not cover salary costs., therefore, Fermanagh CAB must try to find funding elsewhere. “We are still committed to getting that service up-and-running again,” said Ms. Peoples. “I don’t understand why the Rural Development Programme won’t fund salaries. That was such an important project but it’s not a concept, it requires a person to go to those 10 locations. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get funding for advice services,” said Ms. Peoples.

Welfare Reform will have a “massive impact” on Fermanagh CAB clients, she continued. 
Staff have been trained thoroughly on how to deal with the new benefits, including Personal Independence Payment, Universal Credit and mitigations. Staff are already helping clients deal with mandatory reconsiderations as part of the new appeal rights, Personal Independent Payment, the increase in alleged overpayments of benefits and proposed cuts to Housing Benefit.
However, Fermanagh CAB has helped its clients through welfare reforms before.

Over the past 17 years (since 1999), Fermanagh CAB has also provided redundancy workshops to over 2,000 local personnel from factories and industries such as Adria, Ardess, Daintyfit, Desmonds Enniskillen, Desmonds Irvinestown, Desmonds Omagh, Fermanagh Creameries, Ferne Foods, Flynn Fine Foods, Quinn’s, Sir Richard Arkwright, Unipork, West Ulster Farmers and others.

Over the past year, the organisation provided its free service to clients via 12,018 individual advice queries from 9,115 client contacts. Staff attended 231 Tribunals and dealt with £2.5 million debt.

In the past three years, Fermanagh CAB provided 11.5 per cent of total CAB representation across Northern Ireland Ireland but was only funded to provide four per cent. 

In County Fermanagh, it provided 93 per cent of total representation (at 905 tribunals). In comparison, Advice NI were used at 13 tribunals, private practice was used at 34 tribunals and constituency offices were used in 17 tribunals. “This is indicative of the level of demand for this very specialist advice work in Fermanagh,” said Ms. Peoples.

In the coming year, Fermanagh CAB will recruit two new staff and will also continue its dedicated money and debt advice project which has been in existence for 19 years and its disability advocacy project which has been in existence for 18 years.

Ms. Peoples concluded: “It is important to stress that Fermanagh CAB would not be able to continue without the hard work and commitment of our staff and volunteers and I wish to express my gratitude to them. I also wish to thank our Management Committee who are unpaid volunteers for their support and work on our behalf throughout the year.