There are three ways that Citizens Advice Scotland helps bureaux provide their clients with a professional service, every time.
The AdviserNet information system
Citizens Advice Scotland works with our sister organisation in England and Wales, Citizens Advice, to publish the web-based AdviserNet system. AdviserNet provides detailed information on a huge array of subjects from employment and benefits to housing and debt, helping thousands of clients each year to get the advice and information they need to deal with their problems. It is renowned for its breadth and accuracy and is the only available source of independent, trusted and quality assured information for advisers in every field.
Adviser training
From training in employment tribunal representation to an introduction to computing, we’ve got it covered.
Citizens Advice Scotland provides a training programme for bureau staff that is renowned in the voluntary sector and beyond. This covers a wide range of topics related to the delivery of advice and the management of bureaux.
Quality of advice is crucial. Our competence-based Adviser Training Programme helps set standards of advice-giving by supporting and developing our volunteers to become competent advisers through a staged, flexible process. Throughout their time in bureaux, advisers deliver the level of service that they’re qualified to.
Almost 40% of the volunteers that leave the Citizens Advice Bureau Service go on to paid work or full time education. The knowledge, skills and confidence they gain through their bureau training are key factors in making this possible.
Regular quality of advice reviews
The Quality and Training Team at Citizens Advice Scotland makes sure that Scottish bureaux achieve and maintain our conditions of membership.
Citizens Advice Scotland audits bureaux regularly to make sure that they’re meeting the high standards necessary, in both advice-giving and organisational management, to be called a Citizens Advice Bureau and access the services Citizens Advice Scotland offers. Citizens Advice Scotland also supports bureaux meet those standards.