The bright yellow Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) sign still flutters outside the entrance to the Manurewa office but it has just closed for the day. Inside, the offices and waiting areas exude serenity and calm – pamphlets perfectly in place, darkened interview rooms, desks cleared, a tidied kitchen.
Patricia Pera, chair of the Manurewa CAB board, is the acting manager. Pera says it has been “another one of those days”. A Justice of the Peace attended to the needs of 28 clients in the space of three hours. They’ve held a citizenship ceremony for one – CAB staff helped her fulfil her citizenship requirements and the woman then requested her ceremony be at the CAB because it was a “safe, peaceful space”.
Two CAB duty teams have been dealing with complex issues, such as breaking KiwiSaver contributions, immigration inquiries, housing and family conflict.
“We’ve had four KiwiSavers just today. People are torn. They don’t want to break their savings but they don’t want to lose their roof. They don’t want to be a statistic. These consultations take time,” says Pera.
The CAB volunteers take as long as it takes with each person. They are trained to listen, ask questions, be respectful, and help clients find a solution that works.
This CAB, like so many throughout the country, has been around for more than 50 years, and the demand for services is growing. The centre, staffed by volunteers as diverse as the community itself, is run on kaupapa Māori principles. Prayers are offered in te reo Māori or other languages before and after any consultation. Pera believes the only debriefing this CAB gets is with “the big fella upstairs”. Pera also knows that the CAB is under threat with “a few arrows coming our way”.
Those “arrows” are tensions about the funding of most of the 80-plus CAB offices across NZ, each with a paid bureau manager and staffed by about 2110 volunteers.
Kerry Dalton’s world as CEO of Citizens Advice Bureau NZ (CABNZ) essentially revolves around safeguarding long-term funding for the sustainability of operating CABs and also for the very survival of some offices; plus advocating for CABNZ clients. The outstanding issue for Dalton is the impact of government agencies rolling out digital systems in preference to in-person appointments with the public.
Dalton is clear. “As part of its digitalisation transformation, the government is withdrawing face-to-face services without consulting the public. This goes to the heart of the government’s responsibility to its people, because it removes choice and excludes people. It’s an important issue for us to discuss as a country.
“It has significantly eroded the trust between the public and government.”
Dalton underscores her comments with a few statistics: “In 2023, almost 87,000 of our more than 219,000 inquiries were from people visiting [in person] a local CAB. And 40% of the inquiries from young people under 25 years were made face to face.”
If central and local governments are retreating from public face-to-face consultations and are in fact directing people to CABs for the services they previously provided, shouldn’t they pay?
Central government funding is $1.4 million annually for CABs’ IT infrastructure and a small team at the national office in Wellington. But much more is needed to fund the growing demand for services now outsourced to the community.
Digital exclusion
Nationally, CABs have moved into that significant front-line service gap, to support the public to navigate central and local governments’ bureaucratic demands. In Dalton’s view, the government’s choice to go digital, without a clear plan to ensure accessibility, has been detrimental. In-person services have been withdrawn and phone lines are overloaded.
People, including the confident and well educated, are becoming highly stressed when left alone to manage digitally. Many of them end up at a CAB. Dalton cites four main reasons people are excluded from participating online: poverty, digital literacy, general literacy and disability.
As of 2022, CABNZ reports, the Department of Internal Affairs had stopped printing passport renewal forms, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had made requesting employment mediation services an online-only process. Many people also face difficulties using RealMe online identification and find a paper-based application to the Tenancy Tribunal is almost impossible.
When the impact of digitalisation on its clients first became apparent five years ago, CABNZ wasted no time alerting the government to this. In February 2020, CABNZ published Face to Face with Digital Exclusion: A CAB Spotlight Report into the Impacts of Digital Public Services on Inclusion and Wellbeing. Over a three-month period, 4379 instances of digital exclusion were collected by CAB nationally.
The report considers that the removal or decrease in known and trusted public service systems and services has left many clients feeling disempowered, or virtually invisible, because they do not have resources and skills to engage with agencies.
Running concurrently with the government digitalisation move has been an upsurge in interactions between the public and CABs on government business. The digital exclusion report cites 20,000 immigration inquiries undertaken by CABs in 2019. Its writers rebuked the government for putting digital processes before people. The report noted there was not a single government immigration office left in NZ for over-the-counter consultations.
Jeannie Melville, deputy chief operating officer at Immigration New Zealand, says it hasn’t provided over-the-counter services since 2018, but, “we are committed to being a customer-centric organisation that is simple to engage with, helps to keep our customers safe and provides certainty for them.”
Recommendations from the CAB report include the government establishing an integrated strategy for inclusion, making people the centre of service delivery, giving citizens real choices in how they interact with government agencies and funding the organisations delivering services abrogated by government.
It is simple: someone must pay. With the changes in how government information is delivered, the costs to individual CABs are escalating, from training volunteers in the latest government policy changes, to paying for paper to print forms no longer provided by government agencies.
Once the digital exclusion report was released, Dalton met then-Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes, who acknowledged the report’s evidence, but nothing changed.
Dalton went up a gear. A petition titled “Leave no one behind” was organised that year, highlighting the harm caused by digital exclusion, focusing on the public service. About 7400 people signed it, as did influential non-government organisations, whose clients were also being disenfranchised.
The petition went to the parliamentary petitions committee in July, 2021. No one on that parliamentary committee disagreed with the seminal point – that CABs were picking up the slack for the government. The proof was there, with the numbers and the stories. The committee recommended a special debate in Parliament to discuss the ramifications of the report, which was held on July 28, 2022. Politicians from across the political spectrum all spoke in favour of the petition.
With cross-party consensus achieved, it should have been plain sailing to secure funding to at least cover the rising costs to CABs nationally. Not so.
Value for money
CABNZ is no stranger to battling on all fronts and taking the public with it. In 2018, there was a taste of what was to come when the Wellington City Council threatened to withdraw its long-term funding to five CABs. There was a public outcry. The council funded the Wellington CAB to engage an independent reviewer, PwC, to evaluate its services. PwC’s report in December 2018 demonstrated that the council received a 139% return on its investment and pointed out that as the CABs’ help was free, anonymous and accessible, it provided a unique service that enhanced community wellbeing.
Armed with all the reports and recommendations, CABNZ started talking to those government agencies whose clients were high users of CAB services.
In 2023, a bespoke model for funding was agreed to and signed off by all parties represented in the steering group – MBIE, the Ministry of Social Development, Department of Internal Affairs and CABNZ. It was a high-level agreement focused on social justice and wellbeing with people having more control over their lives. It was outcomes driven and community led. The last step was to agree on the funding structure, which did not happen before the 2023 general election. CAB funding is still in limbo, says Dalton.
In April, Dalton requested a meeting with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to discuss funding. She’s still waiting for a date.
Council cuts
But there are more battles to face. Local governments scrutinising their budgets and determining their rates increases are currently making some harsh decisions in how they fund community groups like CABs.
Jane Eynon-Richards, manager of the Rotorua CAB, needs $100,000 a year to operate the busiest office in the country. With more than 1000 client inquiries a month, Eynon-Richards and her 55 volunteers have their office open 38 hours a week. However, this CAB is facing a financial crisis. Unlike many other CABs, which are housed in council facilities, Rotorua pays $15,000 annually in rent for commercial office space.
For the past 21 years, the office has had a partnership grant from the council which meets 40% of its operating costs, leaving Eynon-Richards to find 60% from a decreasing pool of funders. In its latest long-term plan proposals, the council wants to reduce its partnership funding by 15%. Having to find those extra thousands to plug the 15% gap will be extremely hard. Hard enough to have to shut up shop.
“We are expecting our partnership grant to be cut,” says Eynon-Richards. “We are limited in what kind of funds we can apply for. We need to be seen as totally impartial. I wonder whether the new councillors making the partnership grant decisions fully appreciate that.”
Rotorua Lakes mayor Tania Tapsell told the Listener: “There is no doubt that the Rotorua Citizens Advice Bureau provides exceptional value to our community and their services are greatly appreciated by our community and council.
“The application process for partnership agreements will open in the next couple of months and if the Citizens Advice Bureau reapplies, their application would be considered then.”
Eynon-Richards isn’t optimistic about their chances, especially with changes in the application criteria and the competition for grants.
The experience in Marlborough could not be more different. CAB manager Nathan Hanson has secured 100% of the funding it needs for the bureau’s operating costs from Marlborough District Council and other funders. The CAB is part of a community hub with its own offices, shared meeting spaces and kitchen.
With its funding locked in, the CAB staff can be proactive in the community, working with aligned groups.
Currently, Marlborough CAB is the lead organisation for a home resilience and safety project, working with a host of community organisations. People in the community who might need practical support are assessed, then helped by community groups such as Rotary and/or referred to the CAB. It is a case of the CAB stepping out from behind its traditional office walls and into the community. The CAB was awarded $55,000 by the council to help with the project’s running costs.
Jodie Griffiths, Marlborough District Council community partnership adviser, knows the impact a well-resourced CAB can have on a community. “The CAB, led by a very innovative manager, goes above and beyond to provide information and assistance to every age group in our community on nearly every topic, as well as being connected with services and other organisations,” says Griffiths.
Auckland is complicated
As any politician flying over the Bombay Hills will tell you, Auckland is complicated. The creation of a supercity may have resolved some gnarly issues, but negotiating funding packages for about 30 CAB entities was a step too far. Consequently, Auckland CABs (ACAB) was formed so the council could have a relationship with one body. The council contributes $2.1m to ACAB, which in turn distributes the funds to its branches following a council-prescribed format. South Auckland receives the lion’s share.
All parties appeared satisfied until Mayor Wayne Brown questioned council funding of ACAB last year. ACAB funding was then eliminated from the council budget. Predictably, there was a community-led outcry and Brown retreated from his position after being presented with a petition signed by more than 22,000 residents, a victory that Auckland CAB manager Kate Anderson described as “democracy in action”.
Brown was quoted on RNZ National last year saying, “We should not proceed with the cuts that come at the expense of services that are highly valued by local communities.”
In the 2024 council budget, ACAB was awarded a $6m grant over the next three years.
Sylvia Hunt, who chairs the ACAB funding board, says, “Auckland CABs’ council funding had to be saved. If ACAB went to the wall through lack of council funding, councils across the rest of the country would have more than likely followed suit.”
Under Hunt’s leadership, ACAB has produced a regional strategic plan through to 2027 following CABNZ’s principles and values. It’s a social justice document clearly laid out with objectives and measures of success. The numbers are impressive: in 2023, Auckland CABs helped more than 184,000 residents from 118 different nationalities. Of those, 68% were face to face. Most inquiries take more than 15 minutes, culminating in the 700 Auckland volunteers donating more than 113,000 hours of their labour.
Hunt believes what swayed the vote was having the strategic plan, the thousands of 2023 petition signatures and the positive relationships with the council. Brown and Hunt have made a joint application to the government for funding for what both parties consider to be government-related issues.
“We have to keep proving our worth, and tell the success stories, small and large, so funders, even central government, see how we add value,” says Hunt.
CAB in prisons
Upper Hutt CAB manager Jonnette Adams and 50 CAB volunteers have their backs to the wall. Frustration shows in Adams’ voice as she recounts the depth and breadth of the work the office undertakes and the funding challenges she faces to keep it operating.
That work is not made any easier by things like recent changes to the Immigration NZ website, which mean users cannot save material and must start from scratch if they don’t have all the information or time to complete the forms in one go. People will often turn to the CAB to help them sort this. Upper Hutt is also one of 23 CABs nationally that have a Department of Corrections-approved 0800 number for prisoners to use. Four Upper Hutt CAB volunteers visit Rimutaka Prison in an outreach programme initially developed by CAB volunteer Ian James, a former police officer. James has been visiting Rimutaka since 2007.
“It was pretty basic stuff, really. Simple life skills and how a ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ can go a long way to getting the help you ask for,” he says.
During the years, common themes have emerged, like prisoners’ lack of knowledge of how to manage their lives and how to get support “outside the wire”. James also came up against an at-times-indifferent government bureaucracy.
Working collaboratively with a budget adviser, James and outreach volunteers devised and trialled a questionnaire for prisoners so they could indicate where they needed help. The idea was to support prisoners in three phases: to address existing issues, to address those that arise during a sentence, and to help prisoners become better citizens when released. But the questionnaire is stuck in a trial limbo: Covid meant the scheme couldn’t start and post-Covid, it has not been implemented because of prison visit constraints.
“We would like to see it rolled out to the other 22 CAB offices [who work with Corrections],” says James. “But who pays for this service? Currently, no one.”
Upper Hutt City Council used to contribute an annual $15,000 non-contestable grant to the CAB, which met a third of its operational costs. Over the past nine years, that funding has dwindled to a contestable $5000. In its long-term plan, the council considered cutting all funding to community groups. “The community was in an uproar, and still is,” says Adams. “This LTP has ignited them. Petitions were signed, social media was hot with comments; people are still outraged.”
Upper Hutt backtrack
The council listened to the community’s fury and reversed its proposal, adding a one-line statement to its 10-year plan: “Community Grants will be retained at $140,000 per year.” That council fund is now open but the criteria exclude any application for salaries.
Adams is gutted. Under section 5 of the Local Government Act, a council is required to “promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing of communities in the present and into the future”. Adams asks how the city council will fulfil its obligations if services such as the CAB, to which the council refers ratepayers, are not funded.
Adams has a long list of potential sources but she is not hopeful. “We are independent and limited in our fundraising options. It seems that we will have to apply to gaming trusts for funds. And here we are, supporting people with addiction challenges.”
Adams is adamant that the prison outreach programme stays as part of Upper Hutt’s core mahi. “It is critical that they have a trusted, safe, known place to get the support they need to live here successfully.”
But without guaranteed funding, she cannot promise that the CAB will be open when the prisoners are released.