From debt to migrant workers – CAB conference will get to grips with Scotland’s most pressing issues

PRESS RELEASE

Acclaimed Scottish writer William McIlvanney and First Minister Alex Salmond will be guest speakers at this year’s Citizens Advice Scotland conference, which begins in Edinburgh today.

Chief executive Kaliani Lyle called their participation “a tremendous double coup” for the conference, the most ambitious the CAB service has yet attempted.

Both Salmond and McIlvanney, the award-winning author of such grittily realist stories as The Big Man and The Kiln, will address over 400 delegates from Citizens Advice Bureaux across Scotland.

Mr McIlvanney said: "I think the CAB service helps a lot of people who are maybe deprived of rights that they should have and wouldn't get without fair and free advice.  My sister was a CAB volunteer so I felt all the more inclined to say something at its conference."

Ms Lyle said: “William McIlvanney has chronicled and given a voice to the lives and everyday problems of ordinary people - those who are often only heard through agencies like CAB.  We’re also very fortunate to have the First Minister speaking to us, as well as one of Scotland’s leading authors.  We hope Mr Salmond will confirm the Executive’s continued willingness to engage with the CAB service as a catalyst for social change.  He will also present long-service awards to three CAB volunteers."

The two-day conference will explore some of the most pressing and contentious social issues in Scotland today.

These include moves to rein-in the UK’s spiralling debt crisis, the government’s controversial new welfare-to-work reforms, the experience of migrant workers in Scotland, the continuing misery of fuel poverty, and the implications of new human rights legislation.

Other speakers include Duncan McNeil MSP, chair of the local government and communities committee at Holyrood, ‘Debt on Our Doorstep Campaign’ chair Damon Gibbons, and labour-market expert Professor Ivan Turok from Glasgow University.  A workshop on migrant workers will also hear from Karol Chojnowski, development manager of Szkocja.net, the biggest Polish internet web-portal in Scotland.

Ms Lyle said: “The sheer range of issues we will discuss reflects the spectrum of problems that Scots bring to their local CAB.  Nationally, we are playing an increasingly influential role in helping to shape social policy and legislation in both reserved and devolved legislative areas.”

On a lighter note, conference delegates will enjoy a session with ‘psychic entertainer’ and mind-reader Drew McAdam and hear from Donald Smith, director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre.  A new CAB initiative to train volunteers at home using interactive IT will also be launched at the conference – over 80 per cent of CAB advisers are trained volunteers.

Delegates begin this morning with a full conference debate on ‘whether consumerism erodes citizenship’.  Mike Dailly of Govan Law Centre and Douglas Murray, author of Neo-conservatism: Why We Need It and director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, are among the outspoken panellists.
 
“Consumer choice is supposed to empower people and guarantee a more efficient, responsive and cheaper market,” explained Ms Lyle. “The implication almost is you can vote as effectively with your wallet as the ballot-box.

“But many of the problems faced by CAB clients are the result of market-failure.  We want to ask, do those with the least purchasing power really enjoy meaningful choice?  And what things should be basic human rights and not commodities?”

1. Each CAB is an independent charity, run by a committee of local people, and responsible for raising its own funding.
2. Around 80 per cent of CAB workers are trained volunteers – if you’d like to help your local community for just a few hours each week, contact your local bureau manager, or volunteer through the CAS website – www.cas.org.uk
3. The first bureaux in Scotland were established in 1939 as a wartime information service.  There are now 76 CAB offices across Scotland, which operate from over 200 service points, and which form the country’s largest independent advice network.
4. CAB advice services aim to be freely available and accessible to everyone in the community.
5. Consumer debt is now the single biggest issue that CABx deal with.  Last year, CABx in Scotland dealt with debt totalling over £211m.
6. Images and logos of the CAB service are available from the CAS press and communications officer (see contact above).