by Emma Jackson, head of the CAS Social Justice team.

This article was first published in the Herald on 9 May 2026.

"I don’t know where to start..." a phrase our advisers hear all too often as people open up during a first appointment.

Yes, it’s the crisis that’s pushed people almost to breaking point that’s at the forefront of people's minds, but it’s the expertise and empathy of in-person, local advice that can delve beneath the surface, find out what’s really going. Across the Citizens Advice network in Scotland, we know issues rarely happen in isolation.

Ailsa arrived at her local CAB because of energy debt. Terrified of the rising arrears she was accruing, she turned her meter off entirely meaning no lights or heating. Through care and compassion and multiple appointments, Ailsa opened up to her adviser sharing details of health conditions, other debts and difficulties accessing social security. The energy debt a symptom of interconnected issues all compounding to cause her harm.

While Ailsa’s circumstances uniquely impacted her, her experiences are not unique. Across Scotland, tens of thousands of people need to access person centred support from our network. Decades of experience mean our advisers know the domino effect of how one issue creates another. And another. 
Insufficient income means people cannot pay rising energy bills, which doesn’t only add to people’s debt. It increases the likelihood of damp and mould through not turning the heating on. Impacting on health and wellbeing. Potential absences from work. Job loss. Rent arrears. Threatened homelessness. 

For Ailsa, accessing support from her local CAB meant that she could tap into wrap around support. Support to engage with her energy supplier, debt advice, help applying for social security, including a successful adult disability payment award and warm referrals to community support. The totality of her circumstances considered, and solutions in place that worked in harmony to deliver positive outcomes. Alisa told her adviser that after feeling so stressed for so long, it was the first time she didn't have to worry about money in over year.

Delivering solutions that provide positive outcomes for people experiencing the most harm is the opportunity before this new Scottish Parliament and government. As the new cohort of MSPs, cabinet secretaries and first minister are sworn in and parliamentarians set about the work of this next term, finding ways to create the conditions for all of us to thrive should be the priority. 

Policy coherence and portfolio alignment are non-negotiables if this next government is to improve people's lives across Scotland. Just like the work of our network, that means understanding the totality of people's experiences and the interconnected nature of problems. Services and support need to be designed and delivered in a way that mirrors real life and tackle issues at their root cause. We need a real focus on prevention and systems change, backed up with adequate investment that actually makes a difference. The cost of inaction here is far too great.

Yes, the scale of challenge facing the new government is undeniably vast – but so too is size of the opportunity. The chance to do things differently, deliver justice and compassion, so that Ailsa and all of us can live decent and dignified lives. 

by Erica Young, of the CAS Social Justice team.

This article was first published in The Herald on 11 April 2026.

Universal credit (UC), the UK’s primary social security payment for working age adults, is changing. And like shifting spring skies, some of the changes will enable people to breathe a little more freely, others have the potential to be deeply damaging.  

Overall, what the changes illuminate is the distance there is to travel to reach a destination where our social security system provides a proper safety net, and springboard.   

From this month, everyone receiving UC will see their core entitlement, known as the Standard Allowance, increase above inflation. That will be worth around £295 this year for a single person over 25. However, the uplift will still leave single jobseekers an estimated £28 weekly short of what is needed just to meet the cost of essentials like food and energy, putting people at risk of entrapment in a cycle of falling income, debt and deteriorating health.  

Many parents will be better able to build the foundations of a brighter future for their children as the pernicious two-child limit comes to an end. Yet entitlement to additional support will push some households over the benefit cap (a limit on the total amount of certain social security payments households can receive), which will erode UC incomes. Here in Scotland support is available in these circumstances, meaning that it is crucial that impacted parents seek free advice to maximise their incomes.      

Amongst the most potentially consequential changes is the precipitous drop in the level of additional support that will be available to newly sick and disabled people. UC claimants who report sickness or disability will now be assessed for eligibility for additional support totalling around £50 a week, half the amount of support that will continue to be provided to claimants who undertook this assessment prior to this month. Those with the most severe and life-long conditions will be awarded a higher level of support, but at the time of writing, it is unnervingly unclear how eligible people will be identified.  

This means that people in comparable circumstances will be entitled to varying levels of social security according to when they sought that support. This is a confusing situation, which again shows the need for free, expert advice.  

Our network of local CABs are already picking up the pieces of the devastating impact that inadequate social security support can have on sick and disabled people. We know it drives destitution, locks in isolation and constrains human flourishing. Making life ever more difficult for people like Simon. 

Simon’s home has damp and mould, which has made it more difficult for him to manage schizophrenia and a lung condition. He became isolated at home when his son, who cares for him, fell ill. When he first came to his local CAB Simon’s next social security payment was not due for two weeks and he’d already ran out of food, an indignity no one should be forced to endure.  

The changes to UC are simultaneously progressive, yet regressive. They do little to protect and empower people in vulnerable circumstances encountering profound barriers to thriving. What is needed is an urgent, radical renewal of our social safety net, to help ensure that Scotland is the compassionate society we all want it to be. 

by Erica Young from the Social Justice team at CAS.

This article was first published in The Herald on 17 January 2026.

We all face higher energy bills, additional food expenses and pressure to spend more throughout the coldest months. For people with household budgets reliant on Universal Credit (UC), meeting even basic needs can be overwhelming.

Paying for essentials and navigating a fragmented social security system, involving local authorities, Scottish and UK agencies, can become all consuming. While UC design flaws affect almost everyone who needs the payment, young people and women are disproportionately, and profoundly, affected.

Young people under the age of twenty-five receive a lower rate of UC, compromising their ability to cope financially, live independently and succeed. This was the experience of teenager Ross, who approached his local Citizens Advice Bureau around Christmas in acute distress. Ross had found a job and a home of his own. Unfortunately, his health deteriorated, forcing him to give up work. Ross waited five weeks for an initial payment of just £30 in UC, reflecting his age and the date his final wage was paid, leaving him destitute. The CAB supported Ross to apply for payments related to sickness and disability. Insufficient financial support leaves Ross at risk of being trapped in a vicious cycle of falling income and worsening health at a formative age.

Over one third of people receiving Universal Credit - around two and a half million people across the UK- are employed, yet many cannot afford to meet their everyday needs. This is partly because UC entitlement is calculated monthly, based on income earned during the previous month, creating financial instability for people whose earnings fluctuate, or who are paid weekly. Women, who are more likely to be juggling work with caring responsibilities, are disproportionately impacted.

The Citizens Advice network works tirelessly to support women like Carol, but UC’s inflexibility translates into recurring financial hardship and distress. Carol, like many of us, received her earnings earlier over the Christmas period; she therefore appeared to have received two sets of earnings within the month which were used to calculate how much UC she is entitled to. This meant that come January, Carol received neither a UC payment nor Council Tax support. She is already managing mounting debts, taking a severe toll on her mental health.

There is an alternative. An empowering circle of fair work, high quality public services and a strong social security system would ensure that everyone has access to an adequate income to live a dignified life. Realising this vision means carrying out urgent repairs to our social security safety net, insuring us against life’s storms.

At the end of 2025 we celebrated the removal of the pernicious two child limit, a significant step toward achieving the change that is needed. The new year offers fresh promise. The UK Government is conducting a Review of Universal Credit, an opportunity to realise bold resolutions and anchor UC in its purpose of providing an effective safety net and springboard. We can design out destitution, so that in future winters and indeed all year round no one will have to worry about the cost of keeping warm or turning on the lights, freeing people to rebuild and flourish. 

by Erica Young, from the CAS Social Justice team.

This article was first published in The Herald on 15 November 2025.

Living with a disability or long-term health condition has perhaps never felt more challenging for people in Scotland. After years of austerity, the pandemic and the current perma-crisis, all too often disabled people are forced to endure the worst of not only systems failure but also the growth in rhetoric that dehumanises people, deterring them from seeking the support that they need.  

It’s in this context that we need to ensure that disabled people have full access to disability-related social security payments here in Scotland, namely the Adult Disability Payment (ADP). This is essential to enabling disabled people to live decent and dignified lives.  

The Citizens Advice network in Scotland is the largest independent provider of ADP advice outside of Social Security Scotland (SSS), providing holistic support across the whole country to people who need it. In the last quarter (July to September) alone, our network gave almost 20,000 pieces of advice about the Daily Living Component of ADP to almost 8500 people, with ADP advice representing nearly a fifth (20%) of all the social security advice we provided. 

This advice plays an indispensable role in ensuring that people can realise their right to social security. From July to September our advisers secured ADP entitlements worth more than £6.5 million. Our evidence shows that this money is life-changing, helping people to have a better quality of life. 

These successes don’t come without challenges. Applying for any social security payment can feel both daunting and overwhelming. But perhaps none more so than disability payments as people wrestle with sharing intimate details about their personal lives and face the reality of putting downing in black and white what their disability or health condition means that they cannot do.  

The criteria used to assess how much ADP someone can be awarded are identical to those used to assess eligibility for the reserved Personal Independence Payment (PIP). These criteria must be modernised. Evidence from across our network shows that they don’t consider the wider context of a person’s life or fully capture their needs. Furthermore, the criteria don’t consider the potential role of extra costs support in improving outcomes for people, an important measure to assess if a payment is needed and at what level.  

Specialist advisers in local CABs do incredible work supporting people applying for ADP, but it is challenging. Social Security Scotland offers only one contact number to initiate and manage all social security payments, causing extensive wait times (up to 3 hours). Lengthy menu options cause further challenges to successfully navigating the system. Additional communication routes, such as escalation routes for advisers, referral routes to the local delivery service and callback request services would significantly improve advisers' ability to navigate the system better and get more people the help that they need.  

There is a real opportunity to make these and other improvements by implementing the recommendations of the Independent Review of ADP, which was completed this summer. We urge the Scottish Government to implement in full all of the recommendations and – crucially - to guarantee the investment that’s needed to make the system inclusive and accessible. 

Real change happens when people come together and demand it — and Scotland needs that change now. Scotland Demands Better is a march for everyone. It’s our chance to unite, raise our voices, and call for the changes needed to build a society where everyone can thrive.

On 25 October in Edinburgh, community groups, charities, trade unions, faith organisations, and people from all across Scotland will join forces to demand better.

Listen to our webinar to learn more about the Scotland Demands Better march and how you can get involved.  Peter Kelly, CEO of The Poverty Alliance, joined colleagues from across the Citizens Advice network to discuss the march, how it connects with our work, and to answer questions from the network.

by David Hilferty, CAS Director of Impact. First published in The Herald on 13 September 2025.

A couple of weeks ago I caught a bit of Newsnight. For context, I’ve got a three-year-old and a thirteen-month-old – so if I’m lucky (and on a good night) there’s about a 15-minute window to let my hair down at the end of the evening. And that’s what I was doing with it. But anyway. I was thrown back by one question from the interviewer: “Are we seeing a new cost of living crisis?” 

It’s hard to know where to start with that one. Because – as we in the Citizens Advice network can attest – the cost-of-living crisis we’ve been experiencing for years isn’t over. And it also wasn’t very new for lots of people.  

What the cost-of-living crisis did – and is doing – is entrench and exacerbate existing inequality.  

Yet what tends to happen is that the media, policymakers and governments get stuck in an endless run of individual moments.   

For a week at the end of July it was food inflation.  

A week later that had seemingly been forgotten because Ofgem had announced their new energy price cap.  

Then the following week the Scottish Government announced its Housing Emergency Action Plan and suddenly the story was all about the housing crisis.  

You see what I mean? Moment followed by moment followed by moment. It’s all a bit overwhelming and it limits the bandwidth available to focus on the bigger picture.   

And before anyone else says it, I freely admit that we at CAS – and perhaps other charities too – can sometimes fall into the trap of playing the moments game. Every week for example the Herald invites us to write 520 words here in this space about whatever subject we like, and most weeks we do so by focusing on the immediate crisis – housing, energy bills, social security. It’s hard not to – particularly when we have solutions to suggest.  

But of course none of these are isolated moments. Rather, they all amount to a cumulative and compounding impact – and cumulative and compounding harm.  

To a household that’s struggling, these are not separate moments but inter-dependent long-term experiences of your everyday life. When you can’t pay your rent, you typically can’t afford to put food on the table either, or pay your energy bill or council tax or buy new clothes. These aren’t isolated issues but interlocking parts of dysfunctional systems. 

What we need to do – all of us – is get better at seeing the whole picture. Where problems and issues overlap and interconnect. And where solutions need to be comprehensive and systemic to match that. 

So no, we’re not facing a ‘new’ cost-of-living crisis. Just the same one we’ve been living through for years – with all of its intersected harms. 

What we need now is joined-up thinking to tackle these joined-up problems with genuine long-term and creative solutions.  

To realise that, two things to happen. First, people in the most complex circumstances must be able to access essential support where and when they need it most. And second, greater emphasis must be directed toward prevention and tackling the systemic problems people face. 

Anything less would be to continue the toleration of harm.  

by David Hilferty, CAS Director of Impact. This article was first published in The Herald on 16 August, 2025.

“I wish I’d come to you sooner. It’s such a relief just to talk about all this.”  

When you work in the Citizens Advice network these are the type of phrases our advisers hear from people coming through CAB doors for support. While it can be heartbreaking to witness these conversations, there’s real pride knowing we are able to help people going through some of the toughest times in their lives.  

One phrase we don’t want to hear is, “I’m so ashamed.” We are an impartial charity and see no room for shame in asking for help. Whether that’s someone experiencing financial distress or claiming social security for the first time, there’s no apology needed. We’re here to help when others can’t.  

For thousands of people across Scotland each year, we’re able to support them and navigate a more positive path. But for many, a barrier around stigma prevents them from reaching out.  

This comes from a long-term cultural narrative that puts people in boxes due to their circumstances.  An attitude that risks perpetuating blame on the choices that individuals or households can make, when these choices are increasingly impossible. That to seek support is somehow an individual failing, rather than a result of broken systems. 

These myths have persisted as long as the concept of welfare support has existed, and they are just as prevalent today as ever. And myths is exactly what they are.   

For one thing, around 40% of people claiming Universal Credit are employed. Many are juggling two or more jobs, but their wages are not high enough to keep pace with the rising cost of living. If they need to claim some extra support that’s not their fault. It’s a symptom of a dysfunctional economy.   

For another, the social security system is there for all of us. Most people are only a few months’ salary away from needing it and a cut in income through sudden job loss or ill health is more common than many realise. “I never thought this would happen to me” is another of those phrases that our advisers hear too often.   

Worryingly, this kind of social security stigma has financial consequences, not just psychological ones. People who need support often tell us they don’t claim it because they don’t feel they should be entitled – even if they are. In the UK, an eye-watering £22.7bn of income-related benefits goes unclaimed every year. There are several reasons for this but there’s no doubt that a very significant one is the shame associated with claiming.  

It’s time to "design out" stigma from our social safety net. We need a countervailing positive vision, one in which everyone has access to a decent income, and a system which responds in real time to our changing needs without undermining us when we most need support.  

In a compassionate and just society, welfare should be a tool of social cohesion not isolation. Unfortunately, it is too often a mechanism for division and that needs to end now.  

by Erica Young from the CAS Social Justice team. 

This article was first published in The Herald on 09 August 2025.

Last week saw the publication of a radical new vision of what social security for disabled people in Scotland could look like. An independent review of the country’s flagship disability payment, Adult Disability Payment (ADP), was published by an expert team led by Edel Harris OBE, and Citizens Advice Scotland is proud to have played a key role in its development.  

From the outset, the review was a model of inclusivity, rooted in the voices of disabled people and the organisations that represent them. As the largest provider of support to ADP applicants (outside of friends and family), our network was perfectly placed to channel these insights into people’s real-life experiences of accessing the system.  

Exploring the entirety of how ADP operates, the review recognised the achievements associated with ADP as a payment based upon the values of dignity, fairness and respect, while seeking to understand how to build on those achievements.  

It includes several important recommendations, such as establishing a group of people who have direct experience of accessing ADP from Social Security Scotland - placing real world perspectives at the heart of Scotland’s social security agency. This would be augmented by agency-wide training for staff in how to support people who have experienced trauma, embedding a flexible approach which is crucial to preventing further harm. 

Other simple, transformative suggestions include improvements to the ADP application form and giving people the option from the outset to discuss their circumstances with specialist staff either in person or remotely. Evidence from our network shows that many people struggle with the nature of their circumstances, often unable to articulate or even perceive them clearly. Giving people the opportunity to interact directly with agency staff can be the most effective way of conveying a complete and accurate picture of their situation. Empowering people in this way would help to avoid inaccurate decisions, resulting in fewer disputes that cause psychological and financial harm.  

The review is clear. Ambition is needed if ADP is to become a truly world-leading payment. For example, facilitating seamless connections between social security to other agencies and services that a person might need, such as a local authority team, would facilitate consistency in decision-making and better anchor services to the needs of individuals. 

Achieving this means revising the ADP eligibility criteria to focus on the impact of health on wellbeing and everyday outcomes, such as being able to prepare a nutritious meal. It means accounting for the way health conditions interact and explicitly recognising health related risks and potential harms.   

The review has drawn a map towards a process that sensitively explores the multiple dimensions of a person’s life and health, including medical information; the ability to perform tasks; personal circumstances; and social and environmental realities. Such an approach would radically improve the experience of, and trust in, social security and its ability to identify and fulfil the needs of disabled people.  

The Scottish Government will now consider whether to accept the review’s recommendations. Our view is that doing so would take Scotland forward toward a genuinely world-leading, participative and fair social security payment; surely a promising future worth investing in.     

As the project continues and we look to refine the support offered and ensure issues are tackled at root cause, three things are clear. Tailored and holistic support can really change people's lives, to upscale this model across the advice sector significant investment is required and systemic failures must be addressed at source to prevent as many as people from experiencing crisis in the first instance.  

From social security systems to energy markets, structures are broken, corralling people down a path of poverty and injustice. Robbing people of their dignity and costing all of us. Advisers work in unimaginably difficult circumstances endeavouring to support people in even worse situations, while the funding for their service teeters on a knife edge. Change is needed. A reimagining of what could be.  

Amanda has the opportunity to reimagine her and her baby’s life. To start over, leaving behind crisis and desperation. Shouldn’t we all have the chance to do that? In a just and compassionate society, we can work collectively to deliver this.  

I wrote here a few months ago about how Help to Claim also offers a free service for people with hearing loss. We are all about making sure our free, confidential and impartial advice is accessible to everyone.  

So if you, or someone you know needs help after they have received their 'managed migration' notice, do not become or let someone be one of the 22% to do nothing and have the old benefit terminated without moving to UC, resulting in lost income. Contact us. It’s what we’re here for.

You can get in touch with Help to Claim on 0800 0232581 or  https://www.cas.org.uk/helptoclaim. Our British Sign Language (BSL) service is at: https://www.cas.org.uk/british-sign-language-service-universal-credit. And of course general advice and support can also be accessed by visiting any one of the 59 local CABs across Scotland.  

The constant changes to welfare provision are alarming and difficult for too many people. The Citizens Advice network will always have the backs of those people. But we will also continue to press governments to get the system right in the first place so that social security provides what it says on the tin.