A Liverpool charity that offered advice on debt, mental health, skills, housing and immigration to 15,000 people a year has collapsed with the loss of nine jobs. Tony McDonough reports

Liverpool charity Liverpool Community Advice (LCA) has collapsed with the loss of nine jobs.

LCA’s roots go back to 1939 when the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) opened its doors in Liverpool. In 2016 it evolved into the LCA as an independent entity. It offered advice and support to 15,000 people a year at its office in Dale Street in the city centre.

However, the charity closed its doors on December 22 and on January 9 insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor was called in as it entered voluntary liquidation. Jason Greenhalgh and Paul Stanley have been appointed as joint liquidators.

Trustees of LCA had “explored all options” to keep the charity open but had to make nine people redundant and release several volunteers.

LCA chair Gerald Rivett said: “Like many organisations in the charity sector, we suffered greatly from the impact of the pandemic during and after lockdown. We worked hard to get more help but we just couldn’t get the financial support we needed.

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“In our view, there is no substitute for personal face-to-face advice. Our dedicated staff performed heroics during the pandemic for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

“While we are now not able to service any new cases, we are doing our best to help existing clients and where possible they will be referred to other nominated organisations.

“I’m very proud of all the work we have done in this great city and we’d like to thank everyone who has supported us since we launched in 2016.”

With an ethos of being exclusively focused on the needs of the people of Liverpool, the organisation was funded by a combination of support from local and central Governments.

It delivered contracts for organisations and also benefited from public and private donations, bequests and grant awards from benevolent organisations. It provided advice on housing, debt, benefits, immigration energy bills as well as mental health.

Jason Greenhalgh, partner at Begbies Traynor, added: “It’s the worst time of year for an organisation such as this to be forced to close its doors but the trustees explored every option to remain open.

“It is a challenging time for anyone running organisations reliant on donations and grants. A combination of reduced funding, inflation and issues in recovering from the pandemic have resulted in these circumstances.”