What’s on the horizon for Citizens Advice LeicesterShire?: New projects, income updates and data insights

We were able to use our detailed and reputable dataset on our intranet, Casebook, to justify the need for this project, including cost-of-living metrics across all our services. 

Boosting Advice

We have also secured a 3-year project to improve access to advice for over-65s in Leicester.

This is an outreach project funded through Independent Age to combat poverty among older people in the city, who praised our data when feeding back about what they liked about this project.

We were, again, able to use trends and information recorded by our brilliant frontline staff from Casebook to highlight what clients lacked and what we could deliver, particularly in light of changes to low take-up of pension credit and changes to the winter fuel allowance.

Infected Blood Psychological Support Service (IBPSS)

We are delighted to have appointed a Regional Navigator to work across the East Midlands, helping clients who have been infected with or affected by infected blood products. This project will work closely with therapeutic services locally, other IPBS projects nationally, offer welfare advice and develop peer support groups.

Due to the ongoing success of our EMSTN (East Midlands Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia) project, we were also very proud to be offered the opportunity to deliver this key service for the NHS locally.

The importance of Casebook and the value of our data

It is clear in all of these groups how the data and tags that advisers use on Casebook enable us to work on fixing some of the systemic challenges that our clients face.

The amazing data source that we sit on has enabled us to show a growth in demand for energy advice and to respond to that with additional funding for two years; our data has enabled us to highlight that we need to better serve over-65s in the city, and to secure a three year outreach project to do so; and our consistent strong delivery in another service has led directly to us signing another service to support patients with the NHS.

This data source exists because of our advisers, and we are extremely grateful for their diligence. It enables us to make cases for services like these, intending to address inequalities and injustices on a wider scale, on top of our general advice service.

Thank you to everyone who joined the Innovation Group last week and for those expressing an interest in joining us at future events too. It was great to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I hope that we can work together to share all sorts of ideas for new services and improvements for the organisation.

If you’d like to join that group, please let me know. Or you can contact me with your own thoughts and ideas at any time outside of those meetings too – please feel free to drop me an email at or to come along to one of my monthly drop in sessions online.