Once again, thank you to all of you who have taken the time to sign and support this petition.

People Make Glasgow 

Your support for Glasgow’s Citizens Advice Bureaux has meant more than we can say to the workers and volunteers in the Bureaux who support some of Glasgow’s most vulnerable communities. 

On the 3rd September at the City Administration Committee, city councillors agreed on the establishment of a £4 million transitionary fund to support the advice sector, and other groups such as violence against women organisations, communities of interest, and equalities groups who had been rejected from Glasgow’s Communities Fund. 

While councillors of all political affiliations have been keen to take credit for the proposed Transition fund, as of September the 8th, there have been no moves by Glasgow City Council to publish how the transitional fund will support organisations that have lost out on vital funding. 

The proposed £4 million pot, is a drop in the ocean and won’t go far in supporting organisations even for a short time. 

In the aftermath of the 3rd September meeting of the City Administration Committee and the subsequent media coverage, it would be easy to believe that we have been successful and call it job done, but, this would seem to be premature. Instead, in the days since, our Bureaux across the city who desperately need concrete assurances regarding their immediate funding needs have been met with radio silence from our council.

It is unbelievable that now, at a time of unprecedented economic turmoil, our bureaux and wider advice sector have been left without information on how they can expect to survive the next couple of months. 

Staff in the bureaux don’t know how long they can last, or if funding will, and if no funding is forthcoming, they will need to stop taking on new cases. This means that again, the most vulnerable in our city will bear the brunt of a poorly managed and slow to adapt funding model.

While we can cautiously welcome a transition fund proposals, it goes without saying, that £4 million, among potentially dozens of organisations across the city, is a drop in the ocean and will not stretch far in a city such as Glasgow.

Now, more than ever, we need action from our Council and for GCC to proactively engage with our Citizens Advice bureaux, so keep applying pressure, get in touch with your local councillors, MSP’s and MP’s to remind them that we are watching and need answers on how they intend to support our advice sector at this time. 

We don’t need rhetoric, we need answers.

• Our Citizens Advice Bureaux need answers
• CABX service users deserve answers 
• Our Communities need answers

And we need them now before as a city we sleepwalk into a humanitarian crisis with the end of furlough, economic uncertainty, and more. 

Glasgow City Council must publish their proposals for supporting our Bureaux and engage constructively with organisations that have lost funding. The alternative is too grim to contemplate and Glasgow can’t afford for the Bureaux to disappear.