In November 2014 the first, annual drive to collect profile information on all clients approaching bureaux for advice was undertaken. This first publication in our ‘Who Are You?’ series provides a snapshot of individuals in Scotland supported by CAB during that period.
Anyone can come to a citizens advice bureaux for information and support, and much is already known about what types of information and support are being asked for. What we currently know less about, however, is who comes to CAB for advice? In other words, who are you? It is important for us to understand who uses CAB services so we can do our very best to ensure that we are able to reach as much of Scotland’s diverse population as possible.
In this first publication of the ‘Who Are You?’ series we take a look at those who came to CAB service points during November 2014. Information was collected on almost 20,000 clients, which is around 87% of the monthly average for clients seeking advice at CAB during 2014/15. As with all surveys of this type not all clients wished to answer all questions; it is also not always appropriate to ask for such information. Because of this it is not possible to report on every category, but our analysis shows that comparison with the client profile across all 2014/15 is consistent and the data collected is robust enough to compare with the 2011 Census.