Public

A briefing prepared by Citizens Advice Scotland for a Westminster Hall Debate led by Eilidh Whiteford MP.

This briefing highlights some of the social policy successes achieved by the Citizens Advice Bureaux Service in Scotland from July to December 2006. Many thanks to all the bureaux that fed back social policy cases and statistics – none of this could happen without information on the experiences of Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) clients in Scotland.

This briefing highlights some of the social policy successes achieved by the CAB Service in Scotland from January to June 2006. Thanks to all the bureaux that fed back social policy cases and statistics – none of this could happen without information on the experiences of CABx clients in Scotland.

Each year Scottish Citizens Advice Bureaux collect statistics on the enquiries brought by clients to our offices across the country. This information helps us to spot patterns and trends in advice seeking and to gauge the scale of specific problems. This briefing presents an overview of the problems seen by Scottish citizens advice bureaux from April 2007 to March 2008.

Over the year, statistics are collected about the nature of every enquiry brought by clients to each of the 60 Scottish Citizens Advice Bureaux. This information helps us to spot patterns and trends in advice seeking and to gauge the scale of specific problems. This briefing presents an overview of the problems seen by Scottish citizens advice bureaux from April 2006 to March 2007.

In every bureau in Scotland, statistics are collated over the course of the year about the nature of each enquiry brought by clients to the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) service. This information enables us to build up a profile of the issues of concern to our clients, and to identify trends in advice seeking. The information in this briefing is based on statistics collected between April 2004 and March 2005. The figures do not represent a head count as any one client may raise a number of issues during an advice session.

The impressive results from last year's MORI survey show that the Scottish public, and other organisations, trust the CAB service to deliver accurately the advice they need, and they respect the values that underpin our work. This gives us the confidence to address the challenges ahead, as outlined in this plan, secure in the knowledge that the service has a strong record in evolving successfully, while holding firm to our core values.

The CAB service exists to meet the needs of our varied groups of clients, needs which are not only growing, but getting more complex. And we know that there is unmet need for advice, so improving access to the service is something we have to address.

2004/05 has been another very busy year for Citizens Advice Scotland and one in which I believe we have made further important steps in enhancing the wider CAB service in Scotland.

What a year it’s been, for all of us. We’ve seen some big changes in Scottish Government, nationally and locally, and the emergence of the economic conditions that we now know as the Credit Crunch.

This has, undeniably, been a very testing year for Citizens Advice Scotland. In 2006/07, CAS was subjected to a ‘zero-based review’ by the government against a background of an exceptionally tight public expenditure round. This review concluded that we offer good value for money.

Nevertheless we have had to absorb a 10% cut in core funding in the current year and we are facing a standstill budget for the next 4 years. In real terms this represents a 23% cut in our core grant.