As the impact of the cost of living crisis continues to hit households, we are seeing a huge demand for our service across Hull and East Riding. Clients are contacting our service via multiple channels in order to access the advice they need as quickly as possible.

Demand has increased across all channels – face to face, over the phone, via email and by both self referrals and referrals from other agencies. Demand for appointments has also increased. Read more

November and December saw over 200 requests for help from our Tesco voucher scheme as part of the wider Household Support Fund in our area. Our main eligibility criterion for this is single person households. This highlights just how many people in this group have required help and support for essential items during a short space of time. On both a local and national level, this is the demographic with the highest number of enquiries regarding cost of living related issues.

Referrals to food banks have also increased nationally with over 16,000 clients referred in December compared with 11,000 in July. November saw over 15,500 referrals and this was despite several Cost of Living Payments made during that month. The majority of those requests came from clients who have disabilities.

The number of clients unable to top up their pre-payment meters in December rose to over 5000 nationally. The data also shows that more clients were in this situation in 2022 than in the previous 10 years combined.

Of the 600,000 people who were moved over to a pre-payment meter due to debt with their supplier, 64.8% classed themselves as disabled.

Between October and December 2021, the number of clients we supported per 10,000 people in the East Riding who were in crisis was 2.8. For the same period in 2022, this had risen to 6.82.

As detailed in our last article, queries in to our service relating to benefits still remain at an all time high. November and December saw almost half of all of our enquiries relating to Universal Credit and a fifth of enquiries relating to Personal Independence Payment. More and more clients are seeking our advice on eligibility for benefits in order to increase their income as much as possible.  National figures show there have been over 500,000 visits to our page on how to increase amounts received for Personal Independence Payment on our website.

Nationally, the number of clients seeking advice on debt in December reduced. However, this was not the case in Hull and East Riding. The majority of debt enquiries are from clients who cannot afford to pay their fuel bills or their Council Tax.

At Citizens Advice Hull and East Riding, help is at hand for anyone that needs it from us. New partnerships with Northern Powergrid and Reckitt have enabled us to increase our advice resource and help more people with energy and/or cost of living issues.

We also continue to gather and report evidence of the cost of living crisis that members of our community are facing to National Citizens Advice to allow them to continue their vital campaign work.

Finally, we continue our ongoing recruitment drive for volunteers who form a vital part of the work we do in our local communities. We have a variety of opportunities available across all of our offices.

For more information on this and how to access advice, please visit our website https://www.hullandeastridingcab.org.uk/