Citizens Advice Bureau Palmerston North remains a fount of information

Colin Dyer, who has been a CAB volunteer for 10 years, says he is just one of the gang. Photo / Sonya Holm

The fear of extinction has not become a reality for Citizens Advice Bureau.

The availability of information online, including on social media, has not replaced the need for advice and there’s still plenty of demand, senior Palmerston North CAB volunteer Colin Dyer says.

The key difference is the type of advice provided, because volunteers do not give personal opinions but provide a range of researched options.

“We’re really trying to empower people. We’re not telling them what to do. We’re often giving them options,” Dyer says of the free and confidential service.

The questions range in complexity from joining gardening groups to the more “intricate issues” around employment, consumer rights and custody of children.

They also help people navigate social services, immigration, and the police.

In the mix are some amazingly simple questions like “What’s the forecast today?”, and they also get people who just want to talk.

“You really find that the issue they’re talking about isn’t so much an issue, it was just someone to share something,” Dyer says.

The organisation started in England at the start of World War II to help people understand new rules and, “progressively, it spread to the rest of the Commonwealth countries”, he says.

Understanding government policy is still required by volunteers at CAB. They were at the forefront of answering Covid-19 questions and more recently about the Census.

CAB also looks to promote positive social change, with the organisation involved in presenting a petition to Parliament last year on digital exclusion, which is where government departments and businesses (like banks) provide services and information online.

Digital exclusion “is still quite a hot issue for a lot of older people and people that are migrants and don’t necessarily have English as their first language”.

“It’s fair to say that the people who are competent at using online services are probably not the mainstream of what we see.”

A national organisation with branches throughout New Zealand, CAB Palmerston North had 4079 client interactions in the last financial year.

Interestingly, almost half of those helped were aged 30 to 59.

And it’s not just Palmerston North-based issues they assist with — just under a quarter of calls came from throughout New Zealand.

Volunteer Joy McDonald with the many informative pamphlets CAB has in its Palmerston North office. Photo / Sonya Holm

With one part-time paid administrator and the rest giving their time free, CAB is a group that gives as much to its clients as it provides for its volunteers.

“We’re still keeping our minds active [and] we enjoy the camaraderie,” says Dyer of the 44 volunteers and eight trainees in Palmerston North.

A new volunteer will undergo training that’s “very much equivalent to any workplace”.

Plus there are monthly training sessions with a guest speaker, and workshop training sessions too.

“It’s amazing because even in a workplace you’d have trouble getting people to training, but here, everyone wants to come.”

Dyer says apart from rent and office equipment, “there isn’t a great deal of expense … [but] if we lost one of our major funders, then you know, there will be some real issues trying to replace them.”

Palmerston North City Council, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Central Energy Trust, Te Pū Harakeke and various philanthropic groups support CAB.

For support and advice phone 0800 367 222, email palmerstonnorth@cab.org.nz, pop into its office in Hancock House in King St, or go to cab.org.nz.

This profile of a Te Pū Harakeke – Community Collective Manawatū member organisation is part of an occasional series.

Sonya Holm is a freelance journalist based in Palmerston North.