REDDITCH Citizens Advice Bureau is always thinking carefully about how best to provide the service.

Apart from being confidential, independent and impartial, the service is also free.

This is an important principle and we would not want it any other way.

But it does mean the service is constantly struggling to meet the scale of demand.

We rely upon funding which is finite and which limits the extent to which we can expand to meet this demand.

Regrettably, this means long waiting times.

We have an ''open door'' policy where we mix a ''drop-in'' service with appointments to provide as much flexibility as possible to our clients. There still does not seem to be an answer for those clients who call in with a simple straightforward inquiry and who have to wait as long as clients with urgent or complex inquiries which can take several hours to properly respond to.

This is why Redditch CAB is considering, among other things, a ''diagnostic'' or ''triage'' interview system.

This would involve special advisers seeing clients on a quick interview basis and then referring them on within the bureau to another adviser or caseworker on an appointment basis.

This would ensure clients were referred as quickly as possible to the most appropriate adviser.

Moving to such a system would have a lot of implications. We are not sure whether there would be as many disadvantages as advantages.

For this reason, we have been considering the matter for some time.

And now we want to know the views of our clients.

Redditch CAB wishes to invite all clients, or potential clients, to discuss these proposed changes.

There will be a meeting on Friday at Redditch CAB, Central Chambers, Unicorn Hill.

We would strongly urge anyone interested to attend.