CITIZENS Advice York is battling to meet a Covid-related surge in demand for help from younger people, who have never before been unemployed or needed benefits.

Chief executive officer Fiona Derbyshire said the need for CAY’s services was "unprecedented in these unprecedented times", and it was running "at capacity".

She said benefits and employment were the dominant issues, with a 200 per cent increase in universal credit applicants seeking help.

“Our client base is now much younger, generally working people who have never accessed benefits or faced unemployment and are struggling to deal with the change in their circumstances,” she said.

“We have not been able to meet all demand during Covid but have met more demand than before, because of our working methods.

“We are at capacity and will struggle to train more advisors to the required standards to be able to give the high standard of advice we are committed to in the short term, if or when demand further increases due to unemployment.”

She said CAY was concerned about unemployment predictions for York, which indicated a huge further rise in demand.

“We are only able to run advice sessions limited by the number of volunteers and staff we have,” she said.

“These are all highly experienced, trained and accredited advisors and it can take up to two years to train for this role, so generating more people to meet the increased demand is very challenging in the short term.

“Given that we are giving more advice than before the pandemic, we are doing what we can and long term planning to train more advisers.”

She stressed that the national Citizens Advice body ran Adviceline, which worked as an overflow service for York residents.

CAY was also working to explore other means of giving advice in outreach locations when allowed, and it was working in partnership with the council and other advice bodies to do the best it could.

Fiona also spoke of the financial challenges posed to CAY by the pandemic. She said its funders and donors had been "good to us during Covid" but every year it had a funding gap to fill and all opportunities to fundraise had been cancelled due to the pandemic.

“We have an annual funding gap of between £20,000 and £50,000 each year, despite the generosity of City of York Council, who fund our core services,” she said. “We are hopeful, with reduced costs and prudent management, we will not have to dip further into reserves although we have had some expenditure already to enable our staff and volunteers to work remotely.”

l To make a donation to support the work of CAY, go to www.citizensadviceyork.org.uk