American clergyman, activist and leader in the
African civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King Junior once said, “A small
body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can
alter the course of history.” However, waiting for history to take a favourable
course in the wake of the unquenchable avarice of our unprosecuted banksters has
frequently proved beyond the capacity of some to face alone. For us, the
determined spirit of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau has been invaluable.
First formulated in 1924 as result a of the
Betterton Report on Public Assistance and launched fifteen years later on the
day after the break out of the Second World War, this government funded service
quickly found debt advice was a key issue for those who sought the expertise of its
trained volunteers. After seventy successful years offering free consultations
to those in need, their initial two hundred offices had expanded to three and a
half thousand UK locations and its 21,500 volunteer staff had assisted some of
the UK’s most vulnerable negotiate homelessness, asylum, state benefits, employment
law, tenancy rights as well as two major recessions and the onset of the
banking crisis.
The CAB now prides itself on being able to assist more than 14.2 million individuals a year. They are supported over the phone
and the internet as well as provided with face to face advice from the bureau
or visits to their homes. In 2003 following a review of its practices by the
Office for Public Management, it was concluded, “the CAB service provides
excellent value in return for the public funding it receives. It makes a
significant contribution to individuals and communities, as well as to the
process of policy-making and service delivery. Its holistic approach, national
coverage and independence are to be cherished.”
Ten years have passed since this commendable
observation was made and the CAB is currently busier than ever assisting those who
have fallen foul of an economic crisis caused by criminality within the banking
sector. With only the top 10% of wage earners in the UK continuing to prosper,
it goes without saying many of the victims of debt and banking fraud would
struggle to find refuge from their assailants without the CAB’s help. Yet despite
increasing demand, the CAB has recntly been forced to turn hundreds of
thousands of people away because their funding has been axed by 45%. As a
result of these governmental and local authority cut backs they have no alternative but to close offices which are still playing a vital
role in the community. Sadly the CAB office which rescued my own sanity is to
be one of them.
In contrast to the invaluable contribution being
made by the CAB, the delusional and unrepentant bankers armed themselves with
weapons of financial mass destruction, used the window of opportunity created
by financial deregulation to approach their business activities without moral hindrance plundered the reserves of their banks, their customers and the
economy. Furthermore, by obtaining tax
payer funded bailouts to preserve their jobs and their “modest” remunerations,
they have cunningly redirected funding formerly earmarked for the auspicious community
serving CA B and deftly removed the only means by which many
of their victims have been able to fight back.
Roman economist, lawyer and politician Marcus
Tullius Cicero once said,” There is no sanctuary so holy that money cannot
profane it, no fortress so strong that money cannot take it by storm” and recent
history clearly illustrates that a small group of inauspicious bankers have
used money to both profane and to storm and it is the Citizen's Advice Bureau and it's service users
who are now being forced to pay the price.
