Over 10,500 People Received Help From Community Advice Ards and North Down

The organisation held its Annual General Meeting on Friday 8th March in the Community Hub in Bangor, which saw its largest attendance for years. Core funding for the Community Advice service is provided under a contract with Ards and North Down Borough Council and the Mayor-Councillor Jennifer Gilmour attended the meeting along with other public representatives, including MP for North Down, Stephen Farry, Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Andrew Muir, local MLAs, Kellie Armstrong, Mike Nesbitt, Alex Easton, as well as several local Councillors. Numerous other partners with whom CAAND work with attended, including representatives from The NIHE, Housing Rights, The Trussell Trust, Bangor Food Bank, Women’s Aid and North Down Community Network.

The meeting received reports on the services delivered and the organisation’s annual accounts for the last financial year 2022/23.  Tabling the Annual Report Services Delivery, Louise Togneri, chairperson of the Community Advice Trustees, said

“It was a privilege, as Chair of the Trustee Board, to be able present a report to this AGM which I consider to be a record of tremendous work by the staff and volunteers of this Community Advice Service in the last year.  We assisted 10,500 people dealing with 28,500 enquiries. And the outcome of that work is calculated to have generated income of over £3.8 million for people within the Ards and North Down community.”

Ms.Togneri thanked the Borough Council for the core funding of the Community Advice service and paid tribute to the assistances and support provided by Councillors and Borough Council officers.  Other funders included the Department for Communities, Advice NI, Macmillan Cancer Support, Halifax Foundation, The National Lottery, The Police Benevolent Fund and The Police and Rehabilitation Retraining Trust.

Ms.Togneri then introduced the guest speakers.

Ards and North Down Mayor-Councillor Jennifer Gilmour spoke about the importance and need for CAAND in the local community and commended the organisation for the work that they do in helping and supporting everyone in the local community.

Sharron Russell, Director of Voluntary and Community Division at The Department for Communities then spoke about the reliance that local government has on organisations such as CAAND and the impact that this has on the local community. Ms.Russell also gave a commitment to continue to support the independent advice sector in the future, even though budgets were uncertain at the present time.

 

 

The main speaker was Dr.Ciara Fitzpatrick, Lecturer in Law at The Ulster University. Dr.Fitzpatrick is a highly regarded commentator on the social issues pertaining to NI and spoke about the impact that poverty is having on our local community and how local government policy needs to adapt to help alleviate and support people. Dr.Fitzpatrick commended CAAND for their work in supporting, advising and helping people and the need to ensue that the advice sector is funded to allow for adequate resources and funding to meet the demand.

The CAAND Manager Derek McGregor gave a presentation on the services provided and detailed the various statistics relating to all the advice projects. Mr.McGregor spoke about the wok that CAAND are doing to reach out to the local community and highlighted how CAAND were making a difference to local people.

A short Question and Answer session then took place with several questions being asked to the main speakers.

People seeking advice should contact the Advice Line number 0300 123 9287 or can call into the CAAND offices in Bangor or Newtownards which are open 5 days per week Monday to Friday or Holywood, which is  open all day on Mondays and, Wednesdays and Friday from 10:00 – 13:00.