Glasgow’s free money advice services, including Citizen Advice Bureaux and Law Centres, have been offered a temporary lifeline after Glasgow City Council backed down from implementing plans that would have seen 60% of their funding being cut over the next three year.
The cuts, that were only revealed last week, would have left five of the city’s eight Citizen Advice Bureaux, Drumchapel Money Advice Centre and Scotland’s oldest law centre, Castlemilk Law and Money Advice Centre, facing closure by the end of the year.
Glasgow’s East End would have been left with only GEMAP (Glasgow East Money Advice Project) to help those struggling with problem debts, whilst one third their funding from the council was also slashed.
What made the proposals worse is they were due to take place in October, just as the UK Government’s Furlough Scheme and the payment breaks that banks having been offering their customers, were due to come to an end.
What Citizen Advice Bureaux were facing closure?
Of the eight Citizen Advice Bureaux in Glasgow, only three were offered any funding and even the amounts offered were significantly reduced from what they had received in previous years. The other five were offered nothing from the Glasgow Communities Fund and, therefore, were facing closure over the next couple of months.
The Citizen Advice Bureaux facing closure were:
- Easterhouse Citizen Advice Bureau
- Castlemilk Citizen Advice Bureau
- Parkhead Citizen Advice Bureau
- Bridgeton Citizen Advice Bureau
- City Central Citizen Advice Bureau
Backlash to the cuts
However, within days of the cuts being announced, Glasgow’s City Council faced a barraged of complaints and a protest was called for the day before when councillors were scheduled to vote on the proposals.
Objections even came from SNP Glasgow Members of the UK Parliament, Chris Stephen, and Stewart McDonald, and SNP Member of the Scottish Parliament, Alison Thewliss, despite the fact it was an SNP council executive that was proposing the cuts.
Acclaimed author, Darren McGarvey, also took to Twitter to display his disgust and used his weekly column in the Daily Record, to attack Glasgow City Council’s proposals.
Even Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, herself a former solicitor at one of the agencies facing closure, spoke at Question Time in the Scottish Parliament and stated she wanted the advice agencies to continue and go “from strength to strength”.
Glasgow Council does a U-turn
It was, therefore, inevitable, that Glasgow City Council would not go forward with their proposals and announced the day before the vote took place, that it was making a £4 million transitional fund available to prevent any of the agencies facing closure. Details of the scheme have still not been made public, but if it is to cover a three year period, many of the agencies will still face cuts as the amount being lost under the original proposals was £5 million over 3 years.
What is the future for free debt advice in Scotland?
The question that now has to be asked is what is the future of traditional free money advice services in Scotland, such as those provided by Citizen Advice Bureaux?
It is clear many were already struggling to cope before this crisis, with the Money Advice Service having previously stated that free debt advice in Scotland was already 50% under capacity.
The successor to the Money and Pension Service has also now forecast that over the next 18 months they expect demand for free money advice services to increase by another 50%, meaning unless there is a significant increase in funding for such services, they will not be able to deal with the demand they face.
Are there new sources of free debt advice available?
Thankfully, however, there are new additional sources of free money advice available to people in Scotland.
Due to changes introduced into the Debt Arrangement Scheme by the Scottish Government last November, no-one now entering the Debt Arrangement Scheme has to worry about having to pay fees, with all the money they pay guaranteed to go to their debts.
This has allowed Carrington Dean to now become Scotland’s largest free provider of Scotland’s unique debt repayment plan, which allows people to repay their debts, whilst freezing all interest and charges and protecting people from Sheriff Officers.
This will mean that as traditional money advice services face growing demand and possible waiting times before they can help their clients, people who don’t require a face-to-face appointment, will be able to access the scheme through other providers, such as Carrington Dean and on the same terms they could if they visited their local Citizen Advice Bureau.
