Research and Campaigns

Tackling causes for our community

Our twin aims are:-

• To provide the advice people need for the problems they face, and
• To improve the policies and practices that affect people’s lives.

We play an active role in identifying both local and national social policy issues This evidence is used by ourselves and the national service to show the impact policies can have on people.

Citizens Advice use the evidence from all local offices to produce reports and to lobby government bodies and organisations.

We are currently involved in the following campaigns:-

• Talk About Abuse: This campaign seeks to encourage everyone to look for signs of domestic abuse among their friends and family, and to talk about it.
• Secure Self-Employment: Citizens Advice wants simpler and more responsive policies that give self-employed people the security to plan and balance their lives, while developing their business. We also want to reduce “bogus” self-employment, where people whose work has all the hallmarks of employment have been classified as self-employed to reduce their employers’ costs and responsibilities.
• Settled and Safe – A renter’s right: Citizens Advice is running a campaign aimed at improving the private rented sector.
• Fair Play for Prepay – Citizens Advice is the statutory consumer watchdog for energy customers. We are running a national campaign, to get a fairer deal for energy customers with a prepayment meter.
• Cumbria Research and Campaigns Group Meetings
  We keep regular attendance at these meetings, which are every three months (more regular when necessary).

This group is now analysing evidence forms to create campaigns more specific to Cumbria, as well as adapting national campaigns to our county.