Publications

Citizens Advice Scotland’s Impact work plan this year looks to deliver changes for citizens across 7 key areas, alongside a suite of ongoing work to benefit people. This work is rooted in the experiences of the people who have sought help from the Citizens Advice network in the past year, and developed through quantitative and qualitative analysis of those experiences.

Welcome to the Spring 2022 edition of Voice Magazine. 

As we all return to a more normal working life, we talk to Renfrewshire CAB about the innovative approaches they have taken to fill unfunded roles and to welcome new volunteers into the bureau.  In this issue we also take a look at the range of work taking place across the network to help people in Scotland address the current cost of living crisis. We talk to Edinburgh CAB colleagues about how they approached our recent Debt Happens campaign and we speak to Aberdeen and Fife about how they have built relationships and forged partnerships with their local authorities to the benefit of clients.

We meet some of the new Advice Services Team who explain how they hope to work with the network and we offer up some top tips for getting some local media coverage for your bureaux and promoting the great work you do.   

CAS response to the Finance and Public Administration Committee Inquiry into National Outcomes

The day-to-day activities of citizens are becoming increasingly dependent on their ability to use telecommunications services, such as mobile phones, broadband or landlines. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the essential nature of online connectivity and access to internet data, with many people relying on internet access for working from home, staying informed, or interacting with welfare services, and friends and family.

For clients of the Scottish Citizens Advice network, their mobile phones have become increasingly important in accessing vital online services; with one in five of our clients accessing the internet only through their smart phones. Having a reliable, consistent and affordable mobile connection is essential for clients to access services such as Universal Credit journals and online banking.

Citizens Advice Scotland has responded to the Scottish Government's consultation on the Resource Spending Review. You can download our response below. 

CAS has responded to Ofcom's consultation on the regulatory framework for postal services for the next 5 years. 

CAS has responded to a Scottish Government consultation on proposed increases to court fees in Scotland. 

CAS is enthusiastic about the potential for the devolution of winter heating benefits to drive a meaningful improvement in the rates and lived experience of fuel poverty in Scotland. Done well, devolution of Cold Weather Payments (CWPs) and the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP), taken alongside the assistance provided by the Warm Home Discount (WHD) scheme, the Scottish Government’s fuel poverty and energy efficiency programmes, and additional support for vulnerable households such as the Child Winter Heating Assistance, could create a coherent package of measures which work together more effectively to reduce inequality and improve the health and wellbeing of citizens most vulnerable to the effects of living in a cold home.

We agree that reforms to the existing CWP scheme could deliver greater consumer benefits than the scheme that currently exists. However, we do not agree that the Scottish Government’s proposals for Low Income Winter Heating Assistance (LIWHA) achieve this. Indeed, we are concerned that for many consumers, LIWHA will often make fuel poverty, and in particular extreme fuel poverty, worse. Evidence also strongly suggests that in a cold winter, LIWHA is likely to prove prejudicial to the health of many vulnerable low income households. We are extremely concerned about the negative consumer outcomes this will deliver, including the impact on winter mortality. CAS cannot support a policy that holds significant potential to increase inequality and endanger the health and wellbeing of consumers in Scotland, and as a result we cannot support the Scottish Government’s proposals for LIWHA in their current form. We are however mindful of the tight deadlines to which the Scottish Government is working to deliver the devolution of CWPs before the end of 2022. We therefore propose a practical series of evidence-led actions that we believe would safely deliver a Minimum Viable Product to the required timeframes which significantly improves on the current CWP scheme and to which future improvements can be made as time and resources allow