The Western Isles Citizens Advice Service is looking for new volunteers.

WICAS operates across the Western Isles from four offices, located in Castlebay in Barra; Liniclate in Benbecula; Tarbert in Harris; and Westview Terrace in Stornoway, with a dedicated staff team of 20, and several volunteers.

WICAS are also a significant third sector employer with salaries of £520,000 delivered into the local economy.

WICAS are also very proud to announce that they have also recently become a living wage employer, and join only 30 other employers in the Western Isles with this accreditation (including Intermedia Services (Stornoway) Ltd, publishers of welovestornoway.com.

Hector MacLeod, Strategic Manager, says: "In the previous 12 months, WICAS have supported over 2000 individual clients, generating over 4000 contacts and delivering over 8000 individual pieces of advice.

"We are currently recruiting for volunteers across all the islands, volunteers are vital and crucial to our service and have traditionally been the backbone of the organisation.

"Numbers understandably dropped during the pandemic period, as volunteers no doubt concentrated on activities within their own communities, and we are now keen to welcome them and more volunteers into the WICAS team."

The work of WICAS "has delivered a minimum financial gain of £927,000 for clients in the past 12 months, bearing in mind that not all financial gain can be measured entirely.

"This represents a minimum return on our core funding from CnES [Comhairle nan Eilean Siar] of £230,000, of at least 4:1.

"Securing funding is a continuous challenge for us, with many applications in the pipeline to maintain and expand on available resources.

"We work in partnership with several partners locally, including CNES, HHP, TIG, etc, working together to deliver best outcomes for all our clients"