Social policy

Over 1 million Scots are being ‘routinely ripped off’ by unfair delivery charges because of where they live, according to new evidence published by Citizens Advice Scotland.

By analysing over 3,000 customer complaints and over 500 online companies, we have uncovered a ‘postcode penalty’ that sees some Scots having to pay an average of nearly £19 extra when buying goods online. The problem does not just affect remote rural and island areas, but postcodes right across Scotland. It hits businesses as well as families.

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 briefing sent to MSPs ahead of the Stage 1 Perliamentary debate on the Scottish Civil Justice Council and Criminal Legal Assistance 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.

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 increasing number of sanctions that have been applied to jobseekers in the past two years and the effects that they have had on claimants.

This report is the concluding publication of Perth CAB's campaign which sought to research the issues young people face in the workplace, and find out how much they felt they knew about their employment rights.

The UK Government has consulted on their proposals to simplify consumer protection legislation.  The new Consumer Bill of Rights aims to harmonise European legislation into our own consumer protection laws, as well as simplifying many disparate pieces of current UK legislation.  Here, CAS gives its response to the proposals.

The response of the Scottish Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux to the consultation on changes required as a result of the introduction of Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment. 

CAS welcomes the opportunity to respond to the second Independent Review of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). Since its inception in the autumn of 2008, ESA has become the most common issue brought to bureaux by clients.