Our Track Record
1939
- Citizens Advice Hammersmith & Fulham (CAHF), then known as Fulham Citizens Advice Bureau, was one of the original bureaux first opened in 1939 when the Citizens Advice movement was established.
2011
- CAHF opened a second bureau in the north of the Borough at 338 Uxbridge Road improving access in a highly deprived part of the Borough.
2012
- We received a Royal visit from HRH The Princess Royal at our premises in Uxbridge Road to meet with our staff and volunteers.
- CAHF moved into Avonmore Library and became the first and only Citizens Advice in the country to deliver Library Services using volunteers.
- CAHF’s library volunteers won the Bi-Borough Star Awards for volunteer team of the year.
2013
- CAHF set up a call centre facility in its premises at 338 Uxbridge Road to deliver enhanced telephone services. We now deliver a multichannel advice service providing increased access to services.
- In May 2013 our financial capability volunteers were acknowledged with a Certificate of Achievement for an Adult Learners’ Week from NIACE. NIACE is the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education and the leading non-governmental organisation for adult learning in England and Wales.
- We changed our service delivery model improving our service offer to clients and open 10-5pm Monday to Friday for assisted information.
2014
- CAHF becomes the proud winner of the national Citizens Advice Award for Financial Skills for Life.
2015
- CAHF wins its second national Citizens Advice ‘Access for All’ Award in recognition of a range of services, skills and opportunities all in one place
- Services: across the week by face or phone, online anytime
- Skills: Money management skills increased through their multi-award winning Financial Capability training programmes in the community. Our Digital Champion programme provides access to computers and skills and supports people through the Learn My Way suite of free online courses as a UK Online Centre.
- Opportunities: Volunteering opportunities provided for 130 volunteers in 8 different roles, delivering services in 14 community languages, all committed to delivering quality services.
2016
- We increased the range community based services to embed ourselves at heart of the community with projects such as those based at the Food Bank.
- We developed and lead a 6 Borough Partnership to join Adviceline, the National Citizens Advice Helpline as the West & South West London Adviceline Group increasing telephone access for our clients.
2017
- Our client numbers exceeded 12,000 clients with over 23,000 issues, one of our busiest years in history.
- We achieved a score of EXCELLENT across all 9 areas of assessment under the Citizens Advice Leadership Self-Assessment.
2018
- We became the only LCA in the country to secure a 10 year funding contract with our Local Authority for 4 of our Services: our core advice service, our advice at foodbank project, the library service and our homelessness prevention programme.
- And we achieved yet another score of EXCELLENT across all 9 areas of assessment under the Citizens Advice Leadership Self-Assessment.
2019
2019 was one of our most successful years yet:
- We surpassed £1million in income for the first time in our history.
- We peaked at 199 volunteers.
- 48% of our current paid staff team were formerly volunteers with us.
- We won our third national Citizens Advice ‘Transformation of Advice’ Award for our digital skills support programmes.
- And for a third year in a row, we achieved another score of EXCELLENT under the Citizens Advice Leadership Self-Assessment.
2020
- In this monumental year of Covid-19, for the first time in our history, all our services moved to digital platforms being delivered remotely by staff and volunteers working from home.
- Our services have never been more needed and we continued to help over 7600 clients with 24,660 issues
- We adapted our digital skills programme to a befriending service to combat social isolation due to Covid-19 and this was recognised by another national Citizens Advice award for Team of the Year 2020
- We launched our Anti-Poverty project in partnership with over 20 partners in the community to ensure our services are embedded in community settings and accessible at the point of need.
- And we continue to be EXCELLENT in our Citizens Advice Leadership Self-Assessment despite the challenges of the year.
- We generated nearly £800k in fundraising enabling us to increase our service provision to clients.
- We worked in partnership with other London LCAs to increase the number of partners on our Adviceline.
- We won our fifth national Citizens Advice Award for Volunteer of the Year 2020 won by Rachel Atwell who volunteered for us for 14 years, having helped 7000 clients in that time.
- We transitioned to a new IT platform, Google Workspace, to facilitate changes to our service delivery model and to enable our workforce to work seamlessly from any location.
- We continue to increase the number of projects delivering specialised services to our clients, including Help Through Hardship, our City Bridge Anti- Poverty project.
2021
- Despite rising demand for our services and struggling capacity to meet demand, we managed to help 15,934 people last year supporting them with 47,721 issues.
- We continue to embed our services in the community and are now working with more than 15 community partners.
- We are improving access to our services to make it easier for people to contact us and this year set up 4 Help Hubs in the community.
- We continue to successfully fundraise for additional services for our clients, this year raising £780,000.
2022
- Demand for our services continues to rise. Our numbers have exceeded 17,000 people so far in this financial year supporting them with over 47,000 issues.
- We continue to embed our services in the community and are now working with more than 20 community partners.
- We have passed our 3 year national Audit across all 9 areas of assessment under the Leadership Self Assessment thereby awarding us the AQS Quality Mark for Generalist Advice with Casework in Welfare Benefits, Housing, Debt and telephone services.
- We opened a satellite office in Shepherd’s Bush Market to help us support clients through the cost of living crisis.
- We have started delivery of library Services at Askew Road Library. We now deliver library services for 2 out of the 5 libraries in the Borough.