Publications

In April 2013, the general consumer advocacy functions of Consumer Focus and the Office of Fair Trading’s responsibility for consumer-facing education will both transfer to the Citizens Advice service. This is part of an on-going series of reforms to the consumer landscape in which the Government intends for the Citizens Advice service to become the publicly-funded voice for consumers.

The Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee launched an enquiry into the issue of underemployment which CAS and Norma Philpott (Chief Executive of CARF) were invited to provide oral evidence to on the 23rd January.  This written evidence followed the oral session, reinforcing the arguments made on the day.

In April 2012, changes to the number of working hours that couples must work to be eligible for Working Tax Credit affected thousands of families in Scotland. Around 11,770 families, with over 23,500 children, faced losing their Working Tax Credit payments (worth an average of £2,600 per year) if they could not increase their working hours to at least 24 hours per week. Case evidence from bureaux and other sources suggest that claimants have struggled to increase their working hours in the middle of a double dip recession. The outcome of this change is therefore likely to be that thousands of low income families in Scotland have lost millions of pounds of support.

Evidence from bureaux shows that welfare changes are driving an increased demand for benefits advice across the country, with a knock-on effect on the ability of bureaux to be able to help their clients. As the welfare reform agenda gathers pace in 2013, we expect demand for benefit advice to increase further.

Citizens Advice Scotland's response to the Scottish Court Services consultation on the future of Scotland's Court services.

As welfare changes begin to affect people across the country, Citizens Advice Scotland is producing briefings outlining their impact on people across Scotland in our Voices from the Frontline series. This briefing looks at the changes to Local Housing Allowance which significantly affected 4,400 claimants aged 25 to 35 across Scotland earlier in 2012.

Payday loans are increasingly becoming a significant area of advice need at citizens advice bureaux, particularly amongst younger clients who are in employment. While this form of credit may meet the needs of some customers who experience difficulties accessing mainstream credit, bureaux report that many customers have experienced financial difficulties as a result of poor policies and practices in the industry.

A response to the Scottish Government's consultation on the Procurement Reform Bill.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in Scotland help hundreds of thousands of people with over half a million new issues each year. Snapshot uses evidence on these issues to act as an early warning system for government, service providers, and private sector companies, of where policies and practices are failing or inefficient. These monthly briefings use very recent evidence and are an excellent way of spotting trends to social policy and tracing the impact of recent policy changes.

This edition is based on the advice needs of over 15,000 clients who approached bureaux for advice in August 2012. These clients were better off by nearly £7.9m as a result of the advice that they recieved.