Child poverty +

[chesters1]

Chesters, the clue is in the title

 

Citizens' Advice Bureau

 

The staff are there for people incapable of following a website - sometimes because they can't even afford a PC

 

As I said, it is not for the streetwise, it is there for those who are basically helpless in dealing with bureaucracy.

 

...and yes, it has its share of "twin set and pearls" staff, but I know one member, a shoemaker's daughter, who left school at 16, took a job in a chemical works, and now has a university career, a Fellowship in a Learned Society, and a published series of textbooks behind her, acts as Company Secretary to a building business in her spare time, has six children, ten grand-children, acts as a BTO recorder and can also fish a bit !

 

Ask a question that would keep a firm of lawyers in employment for eighteen months, and of course your volunteer won't have the answer at their finger tips. If it were me, I would tell you that I am here to help you ask the right question. If you already know that question, then I am here to advise you to ask it in the right place, which is not the CAB !

When i meant hard question i didnt mean things like chicken and egg merely anything not on their computer or in one instance not spotted on it ,i once asked a question elaborating on another question earlier (regarding the councils stance on a question i asked them earlier) and she went off to the back and came back with an answer completely the opposite of what was right in front of her had she scrolled down the page on the screen (which i did in the ten minutes she was gone) and then pointed it out to her after hearing the wrong answer

 

Now the computer in this instance supplied an answer but the operator was not up to it ,well and good but if i hadn't spotted it ,my response to the council could well have been had a very serious outcome ,i ofcourse would have known back home looking it up but i needed the answer then so the form i was filling in could be left with the council after fillkng it in

 

The council employee was even less helpful and merely said she just gave out the form for filling ,knew nothing more than passing it on to the next person after i gave it back

 

Now "advice " should be right surely? ,had i been some old dear and not some git who believes no-one until theres a feasible paper trail to blaming others for my unknowing mistake the little old lady may well have been in deep doodo and possibly homeless

 

I Would rather be told we dont know rather than "i think its so" but preferably "i know its thus" and will take the blame if its untrue and the client gets in trouble acting on their advice

Theres far to much false fact out there and far to many people in places of trust believing it enough to pass on as truth ,i just hope every single answer on the website is 100% true at least with that you can take a screenshot to show the court but as they say ignorance isnt an excuse in law !

 

I just hope CAB isnt falling into the trap 'tell them anything to get them out the door' used by everyone else when theres a finite time to handle each case

Edited July 13, 2015 by chesters1