Getting support from the Money Talk Team

Our advisers can help with:

• Accessing benefits at any stage in your application process – whether you need support finding out what you may be entitled to, all the way through to support challenging decisions you disagree with
• Your debts – from initial assessments of your debts all the way to support you with statutory debt remedies
• Looking at your income and expenditure and discuss where else your income could be maximised or where your outgoings could be reduced, through accessing available adjustments such as re-negotiating debt repayments or applying for council tax reduction.

This depends on the issues you want advice on, so it’s hard to say how long it will take. If you can't find what you're looking for online, you can arrange for an adviser to call you back.

The more information you have to hand the better. This will help you get the advice you need online or provide an adviser with your full circumstances.

It's useful if you know what your household income is, including any benefits you are already receiving. It’s also helpful if you know what you’re spending on utilities (gas, electricity, mobile phones, broadband etc).

Our page of tips for applying for benefits has a list of the information you may need, but don’t worry if you don’t have all the information, the adviser will still be able to help you.

This will depend on what advice you are looking to access. For benefits and income maximisation advice, you will not need a credit score check. However, if you're dealing with debts, your adviser may advise you about a circumstance where a credit score check may be needed.

You can make a claim or an adviser can help you with this.

There are specific rules about back dated payment of benefit entitlement and limits about how far claims can be back dated. Your adviser will explain what the rules are for your particular circumstances.

Your adviser can't take any benefits away from you, but they'll let you know if it appears that you're getting something which doesn't correspond with the information you provide about your household circumstances and discuss what this means for you.

Yes, the Money Talk Team are here to help you work out the best way to get the most amount of money for your family.

The Money Talk Team service is provided by the Citizens' Advice Network in Scotland, which provides independent, free and confidential advice. It is made up of Citizens Advice Scotland and the network of Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) across Scotland.

Citizen Advice Bureaux has a long history of giving high quality, free, non-judgemental, confidential, independent advice.

They aim to connect you with an adviser who has experience of helping people in similar situations to you. They do this by having an initial call to find out more, and then connect you with either a generalist or specialist adviser.

All their advisers are highly skilled and undergo many hours of training, whether paid or volunteers. They also have robust quality assurance and auditing processes in place, to ensure our advice quality is constantly reviewed and maintained.

If you prefer to get help in person, you can talk to someone face to face at your local Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). You can find your nearest CAB on the Citizens Advice Scotland website.