Six years and counting...
This year marked the sixth anniversary of the Citizens Advice
Direct service. Since it was founded, Citizens Advice Direct
has dealt with over 150,000 enquiries. Kirsteen
McDonald, the Chief Executive has led Citizens Advice Direct for
four years and is very proud of what the organisation, its staff
and volunteers have achieved.
"In the first 5 months a team of 40 volunteers dealt with an
average of 18 enquiries per day. The service is now delivered by a
team of 14 support staff and over 80 volunteers dealing with
over 200 enquiries a day. This demonstrates a
real need for advice in Scotland today. Factors such as
the recession, an increase in the volume of asylum seekers to
Scotland and a more proactive approach to social inclusion, has led
to a huge increase in advice seeking. Citizens
Advice Direct has grown and shaped with demand and we now provide a
much more comprehensive breadth of advice than we did years
ago. We have moved with the times. With out of hours services
and investment in technology such as SMS text and instant
messaging, we are much more accessible and are no longer seen as an
advice service that only the older generation uses," says
Kirsteen.