Publications

As Scotland’s consumer champion, Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) is driven to identify and mitigate consumer vulnerability through evidence-based advocacy and education. While anyone can be a vulnerable consumer, those on a low income can find themselves particularly susceptible to financial detriment.

In 2015 Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) published a report, Remotely Excluded, which used our advice statistics to identify the major issues facing consumers in rural Scotland. One of the most important themes identified by Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) and our clients was the difficulty people had accessing essential services, such as healthcare and work opportunities, using the bus network. To look more closely at what was happening with public transport across Scotland we carried out regional research lead by 16 of our local CAB members.

CAS response to Scottish Government response to the Report of Working Group on Consumer and Competition Policy for Scotland.

The Consumer Futures Unit and the Water Industry Commission for Scotland have developed and published a leaflet aimed at small businesses who may be unaware they need to pay for water and sewerage services, and are allocated a supplier. The leaflet explains what a Deemed Contract is and what they need to do next.

Online shopping in the UK is on the rise and with this comes a different set of consumer problems. One such problem is subscription traps. These are situations where a consumer is tricked into agreeing to a subscription through the advertising of a “free trial” or reduced price offer. If the consumer doesn’t cancel the trial within a set amount of time they automatically get transferred onto a costly subscription payment plan.

CAS response on notification of the latest change proposals to the Market and Operational Code:

MCCP190 - Performance Standard Amendments

MCCP191 – Vacancy Definition

MCCP193 - Change to the Gap Site Letter Process

CAS is concerned that the increase in the number of complaints about public sector services received by SPSO, coupled with limited resources available to SPSO to respond to these complaints could detrimentally impact consumers receiving adequate and timely access to redress.

CAS would support a move by the Scottish Government to review the issues SPSO has raised within its Draft Strategic Workplan to identify ways of protecting the quality of administrative justice available to the general public and allowing SPSO to continue to drive complaints handling best practice and ownership of improving services within public bodies.

Citizens Advice Scotland has published a report providing insights into the impact that water and sewerage debt has on the lives of vulnerable consumers.

The latest in a series of reports into problems faced by consumers in Scotland when shopping online, this reports charts the progress of delivery charges from 2012-2015.