Stressed About Debt? High costs of energy, food and fuel mean that many people are finding it impossible to keep up, worrying about debt or falling behind on bills. The Citizens Advice network in Scotland is here for you, with free, confidential and impartial advice in a variety of ways.
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Spotlight on: Money and debt
Around one in four of the issues brought to Scottish bureaux relate to debt. As well as working with clients in crisis debt situations, many Scottish bureaux undertake financial capability work, including delivering face to face Money Advice Sessions on behalf of the Money Advice Service. The Scottish CAB Service campaigns tirelessly for responsible lending and appropriate solutions for people whose debts have become unmanageable.
Find out more here about our money and debt work.
News
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13 May 2024
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11 Mar 2024
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3 May 2022
by Sarah-Jayne Dunn, Policy Manager in the CAS Financial Health team.
This article was first published in the Herald on 2 May 2022.
Publications
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Publication date: September 2023
CAS has responded to HM Treasury's Consultation seeking views on the design and scope of the ban on cold calling for consumer financial services and products, including a call for evidence on the impacts of the proposed ban.
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Publication date: November 2022
Citizens Advice Scotland is launching the Mental Health and Money Good Practice Creditor Guidance. We've prepared this Briefing Note to support the launch.
We are actively encouraging creditors, both public and private to adopt our Principles. These set out the minimum standards someone experiencing mental health and debt can expect from their creditor when seeking support. Our guidance provides practical examples to firms and public bodies on how to achieve these minimum standards.
Debt is often the cause and consequence of poor mental health and wellbeing. This intrinsic link between debt and mental health is well known with it estimated that 1 in 2 people in problem debt also have a mental health issue.
Managing these issues can prove extremely difficult and people can often find themselves in vicious cycles where money problems impact upon their mental health and poor mental health worsens their financial situation.
Our Citizens Advice Network routinely supports people in these situations and with the rising cost of living crisis now being felt by our debt clients and beyond, we have seen countless examples of people with mental health and money issues reaching out to creditors seeking support, only to find barriers in their way such as inaccessible processes, online only options and a lack of understanding around their mental health.
These instances highlight the vast amount of missed opportunities to disrupt that vicious cycle. We believe that creditors, both private firms and public services can do more in breaking this link.
To do this effectively, it is crucial that creditors have the tools to support people struggling with mental health issues. Our Good Practice Guidance seeks to do just that by providing tangible steps that creditors can take to make them more accessible for those dealing with mental health and money problems.
By adopting our Principles, creditors can break this vicious cycle and care for their customers at a time when support for people’s mental health and money is needed now more than ever.
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Publication date: November 2022
The report is compiled from a snapshot of Scottish CAB clients with complex or multiple debt issues; 2,987 of these clients had relevant data recorded. Complex debt refers to cases where there are multiple creditors or a single liability where the issue requires intricate legal or administrative work, for example responding to court action. The data was collected between April 2021 and March 2022 with the previous annual period used as a comparator.
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Publication date: April 2022
This briefing presents the impact of the Scottish Citizens Advice network over the last few years, and its value to the communities it serves.
