An advice service for today, and in the future

Improving people’s experience, so that everyone leaves us with the knowledge and confidence they need to find a way forward

For 80 years the Citizens Advice service has been providing free, confidential, independent advice to anyone who needs it.  

Last year we helped around 17,000 people with more than 42,000 issues through our advice, information and support services in Wiltshire. 

No one else sees so many people with so many different kinds of problems as the Citizens Advice service and, the people we help are overwhelmingly positive about the service they receive from us. 

infographic showing two ways in which our advice makes a difference

Our foundations are strong, but we’ve got plenty more to do so that we can help more people. Demand for our services still far outstrips what we can provide.

The biggest area of complaint we have, albeit a handful, is about waiting times, either at a drop in session or for a face-to-face appointment. 

We also recognise that not everyone is the same. Equality, diversity and inclusion are in our DNA and at the heart of what we do. 

Our advice is for everyone and we work hard to design our services to work for a range of needs, including those with the most complex problems or where the number of people affected is small.

We know that having to wait during a drop in session can be difficult for people that work, have poor physical or mental health, or have caring responsibilities.

We also recognise that when there is a long queue and we are very busy everyone, including our staff and volunteers can feel under pressure, which can lead to people feeling unable to discuss their problems fully.

infographic showing two ways in which having a problem affects someones health and wellbeing

So, we’ve set ourselves some ambitious targets to improve people’s experience, so that everyone leaves us with the knowledge and confidence they need to find a way forward. 

And that starts now…

From Monday 5 August 2019 we are introducing an appointment only day, one day a week at our offices in Chippenham, Devizes, Salisbury and Trowbridge. 

We will not run a drop in advice service on that day to enable us to carry-out pre-booked appointments.  

Our aim is that appointment days will:

  • help alleviate the need for long waiting times and anxieties that can accompany this, meaning that people feel more able to discuss their problem fully, and will have more time to do so,
  • give people the option to book an appointment to fit with their needs at that particular time, 
  • enable our advisers to be aware of the person's needs prior to their appointment and therefore be able to plan for this and provide a carefully thought through advice appointment where the client can benefit fully from the adviser’s knowledge, research and skills.

We will still complete some appointments on drop in days, like we do now.

We know there will be challenges along the way. We recognise that we may not always get some things right, especially early on but we also know that we must try to make things better for the people that need us today, and in the future.

Here you can find full details of all our opening times and where to find us, including other ways to get in touch, for example advice over the telephone, or download a copy of our new opening times leaflet.   

Opening times leaflet
  

Published on Monday 29 July 2019

by Claire, Wiltshire Citizens Advice

 

Contact us
Please use this form to get advice or to contact us.

We will usually respond to your enquiry by email, however sometimes we may need to call you (for example a foodbank request). We aim to respond to your enquiry within 5 working days, however during busy times it may take a little longer. Please check your junk and spam folders if you have not received a response.

If your enquiry is urgent, it’s usually better to call us on 0808 278 7995 (Lines are open Monday to Friday 9am to 4pm. Closed on public holidays, and over the festive period).
For more ways to get advice, click here.

Please note we will be closed over the festive period from noon on Tuesday 24 December 2024 and will reopen on Thursday 2 January 2025 at 9am. You can still send us your enquiry using this form during the festive period; and we will reply when we reopen.

Note: We are only able to give advice to Wiltshire residents. If you live outside Wiltshire you can find your nearest Citizens Advice here.

Your personal information
We need to record information about you to help with your enquiry. We have a legitimate interest to do this. We collect and use your personal information to help with your problem, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives. We keep what you tell us safe and confidential and you always decide what you share with us. You can read more about how we handle and store your data in our privacy policy.

Your details
If you are contacting us on behalf of someone else (family member, friend etc), there is limited information we can provide. Please get them to contact us themselves to allow us to provide the best service.

Fields marked with ( * ) are required.
If you don’t have a phone or don’t want us to call you, please write 000.
Special category personal data
We need your consent to record and use your special category data, which includes information about your ethnicity, health / disability, religion, sexual orientation, or trade union membership. We will only use this information for the purposes detailed in our data protection statement. Without this explicit consent we may not be able to give you full advice.
1500 characters left
Can we contact you for feedback? We want to make sure our service meets your needs. To help us understand how we’re doing and to improve our service, we may want to contact you at a later date to ask for your feedback. Sometimes we need a trusted research organisation to help us do that.

We’ll decide who we contact for feedback based on the services you used and the advice area. We may also use your special category data so that we hear from different groups.

If you agree to us getting in touch for feedback please let us know how you’d prefer to be contacted by ticking the boxes below.

I agree to Citizens Advice selecting me for feedback using my information and I give permission to be contacted for feedback by (please tick all that apply):