Record numbers of people sought help in accessing homeless services, food banks and energy bill support this year, finding it ever “harder to find solutions”, Citizens Advice said, amid the cost of living crisis.
Figures from the UK’s largest independent advice provider show that an unparalleled number of people were unable to top up their prepayment meters or meet their energy bills. Its clients’ average council tax debts and energy bill arrears were also at record highs.
Citizens Advice, which provides guidance to people needing welfare, debt and legal help, referred more than 208,000 people to food banks and other charities between January and November, up from 200,517 in the whole of 2022.
Energy issues remain a large source of concern, with Citizens Advice helping almost a quarter of a million people in the first 11 months of 2023 – another record high. The number of people unable to top up their energy prepayment meters, at 34,000, was almost double the last two years combined, with December’s total still be to added.
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Citizens Advice said it had responded to a record 41,554 homeless people in 2023, up 17% on the figure for the full 12 months of 2022.
Dame Clare Moriarty, the Citizens Advice CEO, said: “We’re looking back on a year in which things have got worse and it has become harder to find solutions. Our message to politicians and policymakers remains: you need to pull all of the policy levers that are available to address the situation that people are finding themselves in.”
Claire Atchia McMaster, the director of income and external affairs at the anti-poverty charity Turn2Us, said people on low incomes were still feeling immense pressure on their finances despite inflation slowing by more than expected in November.
“Demand for our services this year remains high,” McMaster said. “We regularly hear from people having to cut back on food and other essentials, and many are struggling to cope with rising energy bills through the winter.”
Cost of living relief payments from the government have helped, but only temporarily, according to Tom MacInnes, the chief data analyst at Citizens Advice. “Every time the cost of living payment comes in, the numbers of people we’re referring to food banks drop – but then the number always goes back up again,” he said.
A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting the most vulnerable, which is why the £104bn cost of living package, worth around £3,700 per household, will include a 6.7% increase to benefits next year and the household support fund is helping people with the cost of essentials.”
“The increase to the local housing allowance rate means 1.6 million private renters on housing benefit or universal credit will gain an average of nearly £800 a year on top of the £30bn of housing support provided this year.”
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Citizens Advice said the uprating of benefits would help. In November, 50% of those helped by Citizens Advice had a negative household budget, up from 37% at the start of 2020, and the network had expected that figure to climb to 60% but for the benefits intervention. The figure is now expected to fall to 45% in April.
However, Moriarty said more still had to be done to make a difference. “There are things that can make a difference. We’re seeing some of it happening. Not enough,” she said. “Whether that is short-term support for bills, whether it’s sorting out a proper social tariff for energy – which will give support to people over the rest of this decade– whether that’s resolving issues in the housing market or the regulation of buy now pay later … Let’s make 2024 the year when we see more of the action that’s needed to improve people’s finances.”
