-
Publication date:February 2020 -
Publication date:January 2020Citizens Advice Scotland is today publishing a new guide for how organisations can take the public with them when planning new building developments or other activities. Based on joint research carried out with Scottish Water and the Customer Forum, the CAS report captures the components of best practice community engagement, which we believe should be at the centre of organisations’ community engagement policy and practice.
Spotlight: -
Publication date:January 2020
The Scottish Campaign on Rights to Social Security (SCoRSS) is a coalition of organisations who advocate for a reformed social security system that reflects the five principles set out in our Principles for Change. SCoRSS (previously the Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform) encompasses over 40 organisations from key third sector organisations, charities, faith groups, and unions.
Spotlight: -
CAS supports principles of single enforcement body but warns it must be adequately resourced and resist centralisationPublication date:January 2020
Citizens Advice Bureaux across Scotland dealt with over 40,000 employment issues in 2018-19 alone, and recorded more than 300 detailed case studies related to employment. Employment advice is consistently one of our top five advice areas, and the advice categories “terms and conditions” and “pay and entitlements” are the most commonly recorded client inquiries. Between, 2016-17 and 2017-18, employment issues related to terms and conditions, and pay and entitlements grew slightly as a proportion of all employment issues we dealt with. This Citizens Advice Scotland response is based on our previous research in this area and analysis of detailed case studies submitted by frontline advisers between April 2018 and September 2019[i].
Spotlight: -
Scottish Commission on Social Security consultationPublication date:January 2020
Citizens Advice Scotland recommends the draft regulations are amended to change or clarify a number of areas to improve the social security support provided to disabled children and young people.
Spotlight: -
The Citizens Advice Scotland network magazinePublication date:January 2020Issue of 2 of the Citizens Advice network in Scotland magazine
Spotlight: -
Publication date:January 2020This is the Annual Report for Citizens Advice Scotland for the 2018-19 financial year.
-
CAS calls for better notice of shifts and shift cancellationPublication date:January 2020
Citizens Advice Scotland is publishing its response to a UK Government "Good Work Plan" consultation. This consultation looked at unfair one-sided flexible working practices, where the employer expects the worker to be flexible and respond to shift changes with no or little notice, while not reciprocating. In this response, CAS provides examples of workers suffering detriment as a result of one-sided flexibility and makes recommendations to address this.
Spotlight: -
Publication date:January 2020
This is CAS' response to the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee's call for view on local energy and electric vehicles, as part of their Energy Inquiry. CAS acknowledges the central role that locally-owned energy and electric vehicles have to play in the transition to low carbon, in line with climate change targets but we emphasise the need to protect consumers in the transition from unaffordably high fuel bills, scams and lack of redress, especially those who are vulnerable to these changes.
Spotlight: -
CAS briefing for MPsPublication date:January 2020
Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) believes the Universal Credit (UC) system must change if the benefit is to work for all citizens across Scotland, and the rest of the UK. By ‘work’ CAS means the UC system should not cause financial destitution or debt, should be accessible to everyone and should support people who are in work.
Spotlight: -
Publication date:January 2020
CAS responded and gave evidence to the Inquiry on Protected Trust Deeds.
Spotlight: -
Publication date:December 2019
This briefing paper outlines the scale of the challenge to improve the energy performance of Scotland’s housing stock. It presents CAS’ estimate of how much it will cost to raise the energy performance of all homes in Scotland to at least an EPC C by 2040 (EPC B for social sector homes) in line with the Scottish Government’s target under Energy Efficient Scotland (EES).
Spotlight: -
Publication date:December 2019
CAS welcomes the proposals for ECO3. The ECO scheme has helped deliver energy efficiency measures to vulnerable consumers in two other phases and we were pleased to see that BEIS and Ofgem are expanding consumer protections in this third iteration. In particular, we are pleased to see the incorporation of Trustmark into ECO3 to certify suppliers.
-
Publication date:December 2019
Citizens Advice Scotland welcomes the opportunity to respond to this consultation. It is important that we recognise the role that all bodies and sectors have to play in achieving the new and ambitious climate change targets that were passed in the Climate Change Bill in September 2019.
It is, however, imperative that the Scottish Government properly supports public bodies to meet any new duties or roles. It is important that public bodies are able to continue to provide the same (or higher) standard of service to citizens without inadvertently or intentionally passing on the cost of achieving emissions reductions to the very citizens they are trying to support. -
Publication date:December 2019
This policy report summarises findings and recommendations from our research into the complaints process for post and parcel companies.
CAS commissioned interviews with a number of delivery companies, and found that many are falling behind the Universal Service Provider Royal Mail when it comes to consumer complaints procedures.
Spotlight: -
Publication date:December 2019
In this response, Citizens Advice Scotland lays out our support of the broad aims of the principles within the policy statement, but urge that much more must be done to strengthen consumer protection and ensure that communities are involved in the process in an inclusive, sustainable way that meets their needs.
-
Social Security Advisory Committee consultationPublication date:December 2019
Citizens Advice Scotland welcomes the opportunity to respond to the consultation. Advice on disability benefits and mobility are among the most common areas of advice provided by Scotland’s CAB network. In 2018-19, Scottish CAB provided advice to clients on 47,133 issues related to the mobility component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and 5,050 related to the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) mobility element.
Spotlight: -
The issues on which people are turning to the Citizens Advice network in Scotland for help.Publication date:December 2019 -
A proposed guide for phone, broadband and pay-TV providersPublication date:November 2019
Citizens Advice Scotland has called for phone, broadband and pay-TV providers to recognise that vulnerable consumers need extra support in accessing these services.
In a response to a consultation by Ofcom which is seeking to provide guidance to providers on treatment of vulnerable consumers, CAS calls for an inclusive approach which widens the definition of vulnerability to include rurality, and which recognises that consumers can be vulnerable at different times in their lives.
Spotlight: -
Publication date:November 2019
The energy regulator, Ofgem, publishes data on the consumption of gas and electricity by typical domestic consumers in GB. These Typical Domestic Consumption Values become industry standards and are used in a variety of different ways by energy suppliers, Price Comparison Websites, and the media. They have also become the benchmark annual consumption value used by Ofgem when it sets the prepayment and default tariff price caps.
The Typical Domestic Consumption Values are based on the total domestic consumption of gas and electricity in GB over a 2-year period and are subject to biennial review.
Having last been reviewed in 2017, Ofgem published its latest review of the Typical Domestic Consumption Values in an open letter to the energy industry and its stakeholders on 18 October 2019. In our response to this consultation, CAS observes that:
- The value of the Typical Domestic Consumption Values to both consumers and suppliers is eroded by the use of GB averages. These hide very significant variations in typical annual domestic gas and electricity consumption between the different regions of GB. The Typical Domestic Consumption Values could therefore be made more relevant were they to be reported as a series of averages by electricity distribution network operator region. This would be consistent with how gas and electricity tariffs are priced in GB.
- For properties with wet electric heating systems and/or supplied via multiple electricity meter points, the aggregation of all multi-rate electricity meter types results in a series of Typical Domestic Consumption Values that significantly misrepresents consumers’ total annual consumption and their peak:off-peak consumption split. With the possibility that the revised Typical Domestic Consumption Values will be integrated into the prepayment and default tariff price caps at a later date, there is a need for a discreet set of Typical Domestic Consumption Values and peak:off-peak consumption splits to be produced for a small number of related multi-rate electricity meter sub-profiles.
- In addition to providing a more balanced and more locally representative price cap, these changes would also allow suppliers to provide consumers with better quality information on how their energy use compares with similar consumers, and better quality, more relevant advice on energy efficiency.
Spotlight:
Stressed About Debt? High costs of energy, food and fuel mean that many people are finding it impossible to keep up, worrying about debt or falling behind on bills. The Citizens Advice network in Scotland is here for you, with free, confidential and impartial advice in a variety of ways.