Publications

The roll out of smart meters to UK gas and electricity consumers is to be completed by 2020, updating the country’s energy infrastructure and offering a number of benefits to consumers. However there is a risk that where people live, the type of home they live in and how they pay for their energy may affect when they receive a smart meter, and what kind they will be offered.

If conditionality is to be used within the benefit system, CAS believes it must be part of a holistic system that supports, rather than compels, jobseekers into sustainable employment. Sanctions should be always proportionate to the “offence” and should be operated as a last resort to ensure that claimants are seeking employment in exchange for their benefit. 

This report presents many of the Universal Credit cases that Scotland’s CAB network has advised on during the first year of the rollout. At this stage, it is a only a small fraction of the people who will eventually receive Universal Credit – single jobseekers with ‘simple’ claims. However, the evidence allows us to start to identify some of the challenges that may stand in the way of the success of Universal Credit and to make recommendations for how these obstacles can be overcome. These challenges fall into three groups – design challenges, transitional and administrative challenges and future challenges.

This briefing focuses on the opportunities that the devolution of social security powers offers to Scotland – it is the chance to design a system that has the principles of dignity and respect at its heart. The following pages outline the challenges and issues that the parliament needs to address to make this system a reality.

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

Citizens Advice Scotland is extremely concerned about the potential negative impact of the abolition of the ESA Work Related Activity component. The removal of support for the additional costs faced by disabled people through this component could have the effect of creating additional barriers to them gaining employment. The majority of people affected by the move are far from the labour market, with 73% of Scottish claimants in the ESA Work Related Activity Group having been in receipt of the benefit for more than two years, and in some cases will never be fit for work again.

In this edition of the ‘Who Are You?’ series we take a look at those who came to CAB service points during November 2015.  Information was collected on almost 17,000 clients, which is an increase in reporting of 6% from our first client profile data collection in 2014.  In learning from the pilot phase of this work, a more accurate measure of comparison between the client profile and all clients seen in November has been developed.  This indicates that the profile captures approximately 74% of all clients seen in November 2015, an increase of 6% from the proportion seen in 2014.

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 data from 2014/15 is consistent and the data collected is robust enough to compare with the 2011 Census. 

This report provides a snapshot of the key issues that are affecting consumers in Scotland, examining both national and local trends in consumer issues.  This is based on data provided by Citizens Advice Bureaux in Scotland and data from the Citizens Advice consumer service and covers the period from April 2014 to May 2015.

The Citizens Advice Service is the most common external source of advice for employees who experience problems at work. In Scotland last year, clients brought over 50,625 new employment issues to their local CAB.