THE CEO of an independent advice service has said that the cost-of-living crisis has become so acute, workers are finding it “sometimes impossible” to find a solution for struggling residents.

Carlisle City Council’s People Panel met at the Civic Centre on Thursday to discuss food security and the cost-of-living crisis.

Chief executive of Citizens Advice Carlisle and Eden Andy Auld attended to give evidence on the toll it has taken in the area.

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Mr Auld said: “We acknowledge that the legacy of Covid-19 will be with us for years to come.

“On top of that, the cut to Universal Credit last year, increase in National Insurance contributions, the energy crisis and inflation more generally, which is resulting in higher bills, mean that low paid vulnerable residents of Carlisle will find their household budgets being squeezed still further.

“We’ve already seen that it’s going to get worse. We’ve looked at what we’ve dealt with, tried to identify themes, tried to look at what we face around the corner.”

Mr Auld said that a younger demographic of residents have reached out with their struggles since the launch of new channels for support such as video calls and online chats.

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He said that “demand is going to be a major challenge” going forward as the new channels have led to new clientele and calls for support have increased during the cost-of-living crisis.

Morale has taken a hit at the service as workers are finding it “sometimes impossible to find long term solutions to some clients.”

“Previously if someone came to us with debt issues, our first job is to look at maximising income, look at reducing expenditure and then hopefully we’ve got a balanced budget with a little bit of money that we can then go to the creditors and say ‘this is a plan of how to get out of it.’

“Or a balance budget but no long term plan to get out of it other than insolvency and then we could help the client to go down that route, to give them a fresh start.

“What we’ve found over the last six to nine months is an increasing number of clients where we can’t even get that balanced budget. We can’t even get expenditure below income and that’s just with the bare essentials, there are no luxury items in there.”

Councillors agreed at the meeting to put together a task force to investigate the cost-of-living-crisis in detail.

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