Background

Access to Advice and Information

One of the key aims of the Citizens Advice Service in Scotland is to provide free, confidential and impartial advice to everybody regardless of race, sex, disability or sexuality.

Barriers to Advice

There are may barriers to achieving this goal. A prime example is the very nature of the Scottish landscape and its impact on the country's population. Poor communication and transport, the scattered nature of the population in rural areas and consequent distance from advice centres make accessing advice particularly difficult. At the same time, the peripheral nature of rural societies may mean that those on the margins and in most need of support can be extremely vulnerable.

Rurality is just one aspect, of the problem of accessibility. In theory it may be easier to access a bureau in an urban centre because there are more of them and the transport infrastructure is better. However, availability does not equate with accessibility. This is particularly true for the elderly, disabled or housebound. It also applies to members of ethnic minorities for whom language can be a barrier; those who cannot afford transport or child care costs or people who are at work during bureau opening hours.

Feasibility Study

A feasibility study reporting on the, "the use of telephone advice as a means of improving the access to advice services in Scotland", was commissioned. The research for the study included analysing the telephone statistics for CABx, conducting interviews with CABx workers and clients. The findings of the feasibility study can be summarised as follows:

  • There is a demand for telephone advice in Glasgow and the Highlands that is not currently being met by Citizens Advice Bureau. The percentage of enquiries answered by a person in the bureaux surveyed varied from 40% to 1%.
  • This demand would increase further if stimulated by service advertised to the general public.
  • Expressed levels of satisfaction with telephone advice are high with 88% of respondents stating that they received all of the help and information that they required over the phone.
  • 69% of the people surveyed stated that they would prefer to use the phone than a face-to-face service.

Citizens Advice Direct was established to deliver a telephone helpline run by trained volunteers to satisfy this unmet demand. The telephone advice service will provide initial advice and information that empowers individual clients to deal with their issues