Debts & Loans

People with money worries may be forced to wait for help because of the credit crunch, the manager of an Oxford community advice service has claimed.

Jim Saunders, of the Agnes Smith Advice Centre, in Blackbird Leys, said a surge in demand had left his small team dealing with nearly 1,000 queries a month about financial problems.

He said: "I'm very worried, because we're getting to the stage where we may have to turn people away. It could be that we can’t meet the demands of the local community."

Staff at the centre, in Blackbird Leys Road, had inquiries from 5,000 people in the past six months.

Of those, about 900 people have become clients of the service, meaning they need help with issues including benefit claims, personal debt and threats of eviction.

Mr Saunders said work is shared among four full-time employees, three part-time employees and three part-time volunteers.

He predicted that as the economy got worse, more people would come to the 31-year-old centre for advice.

He admitted: "If it keeps increasing, we're not going to have the manpower to take on new cases, so I'm very worried.

"We have had similar increases in the past where we have not had enough staff to meet the demand.

"We had one a couple of years ago, when we had to put people on a waiting list — which isn’t very good, because if people have got creditors waiting on them and bailiffs wanting to come round, being on the list doesn’t really help them."

Mr Saunders, who has worked at the advice centre for 17 years, has tried to attract new volunteers by advertising locally and setting up a stall at the Leys Fair.

He said: "We need as many people as we can get. A minimum of three to four. It is a good friendly team — almost like a little family.

"The people who need help usually come in very stressed — some of them have cried. But they usually leave with a smile on their face.

"The service can make a total change to their life. It turns their situation around from being a life of stress to being able to cope with life and maintaining a stable family."

New volunteers will be expected to give up one day a week, getting on-the-job training during their first year to become fully qualified advice workers.