Publications

MP Briefing in support of 18 January Opposition motion to keep the £20 a week UC uplift.

An unprecedented number of people have claimed UC for the first time since March, with the total number of UC recipients in Scotland doubling since January 2020 to 475,000 people. At the start of the pandemic, CAS welcomed the UK Government increasing UC payments by £20 a week – an annual increase of £1,040. CAS now recommends that the £20 increase to Universal Credit is made permanent in the Spring Budget.

CAS recommends the £20 a week increase to UC is made permanent.

If the uplift is removed, it will have the following impacts:

• People across Scotland on Universal Credit will face a significant income shock and be pushed into poverty.
• Financial hardship will be exacerbated, with wider health and economic impacts.
• Those already struggling will be hardest hit. An additional 1 in 6 Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) clients in complex debt will be pushed into an income crisis.

In 2018-19, the Citizens Advice network helped over 270,000 clients in Scotland with almost 750,000 advice issues. With support from the network, clients had financial gains of over £131 million and our self-help website Advice in Scotland received approximately 3.7 million views.

The Citizens Advice network issued 311,714 pieces of advice on benefit issues, the single largest area of advice for the network in 2018-19. Since February this year the network has provided over 85,000 pieces of advice on Universal Credit alone.

At the start of the on-going pandemic, CAS welcomed the quick action taken to boost the level of payment of Universal Credit (UC).

Since March, Scotland’s Citizens Advice Network has provided over 85,000 pieces of advice on Universal Credit. The role of UC in the social security safety-net has never been as important as in the current crisis.

Citizens Advice Scotland recommends the draft regulations are amended to change or clarify a number of areas to improve the social security support provided to disabled children and young people.

We work on the issues that matter to our network’s clients and our member CAB. Our focus is on delivering advocacy drawn from the experience and insights of the Scottish Citizens Advice network, which is rooted in communities across the country. 

Complex metering arrangements are found in significant numbers across both the Scottish electricity network distribution licence areas. Our advocacy on behalf of consumers in Scotland with non-E7 restricted meters is informed by the evidence of our network, where consumer detriment and problems with market access are commonly reported. CAS strongly supports the extension of SLC22G, but our response makes further recommendations to Ofgem which we believe require consideration if the extended market intervention is to be effective. 

In 2019, Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) commissioned research to ascertain consumers’ views on and experiences of the gas and electricity distribution networks in Scotland, and their priorities for future distribution network investment. We also explored the attitudes of consumers in Scotland towards some of the potential changes in electricity use that may be required as the energy system evolves to support Scottish and UK Government climate change targets, and consumers' understanding and opinions of some of the technologies that are envisaged to aid the energy transition. In addition, we explored consumers’ views on a potential increase in the electrification of heat in Scotland, and their enthusiasm for and opinions of future opportunities to provide flexibility to their electricity distribution network operator.

This report summarises the results of our research and considers how Scotland’s gas and electricity distribution networks might be able to help redefine consumers’ relationship with the energy system in support of Scottish and UK Government climate change policies. It is published alongside a summary of its key findings and the final report compiled by our research partner, Accent.