THE Citizens Advice Bureau provides a nationally recognised service for advising and assisting clients who are having financial problems.

The advice procedure follows the same course whatever the amount of the debts or number of creditors involved.

We find out what income is available to the client which includes details of the household income and how to increase it, if possible. Following on, we ascertain details of all necessary expenditure.

We deal with the priority debts by negotiating payments.

These debts are those which affect the client's security eg: rent, mortgage, council tax, utilities, child support, court fines.

We then prepare a financial statement, which shows all this information, to send to the creditors.

Only if there is an available income after dealing with priority debts are offers made to non-priority creditors.

Whatever the client's situation shows, when the financial statement has been prepared and agreed, we will negotiate with creditors on behalf of the client.