Publications

The rise in payday lending in the UK has led to a concurrent rise in the number of credit brokers who offer to search for loans for consumers for a fee. Evidence from the citizens advice service indicates that consumers can experience significant detriment and hardship caused by the (often unintentional) use of a credit broker. While brokers can offer a legitimate service, many of the industry practices, including providing misleading information, sharing personal details with other brokers, offering customer applications for the highest commission, and refusing to offer refunds, are in urgent need of change. 

CAS has submitted evidence on food parcels to the Welfare Reform Committee ahead of an oral evidence session on the 29th April 2014. 

This briefing was provided for a Scottish Parliament members debate on the Financial Conduct Authority’s Plans to Regulate the Payday Loan Industry. Citizens Advice Bureaux across Scotland deal with 100 cases every week regarding problems with payday loan debt. CAS have made a number of recommendations that we believe will help alleviate the biggest issues clients are seeking advice on.

CAS has responded to the Financial Conduct Authority's consultation on how they approach achieving their objectives in regulating financial products.

CAS has issued a response to the Competition Comission's payday lending market investigation drawing on evidence from Citizens Advice Bureaux across Scotland and callers to the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline.

CAS responds to the HMRC's consultation on supporting customers who need additional help.  We focus on our experience of supporting clients with tax credits issues.

In November 2012, the UK Government launched its Government Digital Strategy . This paper sets out how the Government will transform the way it delivers services to citizens, including moving services online – a change in ethos to “digital by default”. Citizens Advice Scotland is concerned that a digital by default approach to welfare benefits could exclude some of the most vulnerable and marginalised members of society from accessing the very services they rely upon.

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.

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.