​The less well off you are the more you pay, a new report finds

Poorer Scots are paying over the average amounts for essential day-to-day services like phone, internet, banking, credit and energy bills according to a new report.

Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) says low-income Scots are paying an average of 10% more for these services which many can ill afford.

The report is one of a series, looking at the experiences of a selection of people visiting the Citzen's Advice Bureau (CAB) service over 2014/15.

It found that a “poverty premium” is being charged by even the biggest companies and is unfairly discriminating against those on the lowest rungs of the income ladder.

CAS consumer spokesperson Sarah Beattie-Smith said the poverty premium can mean the difference between families being almost able to cope - with an income £9 a week below the minimum income standard (MIS) - to finding themselves unable to cope, at £39 a week below.

This poverty premium...often pushes people over the edge and into crisis

She added: “When the poverty premium impacts people on very marginal incomes it can leave them destitute and in need of emergency assistance such as help from food banks. The poverty premium does not just make life more expensive for the financially less well off, it often pushes them over the edge and into crisis.

“In this report we find evidence of how various aspects of poverty premiums can affect the same individual, compounding the impact of poverty upon their lives.

“We see how the lack of internet access, for example, or a bank account, or the need to avoid uncertain short-term costs, leads households to remain on energy supply payment methods which are far from the cheapest for their usage patterns.”

Pricing structures developed within the energy market despite recent reforms continued to discriminate against low-use customers, leaving some CAB clients with debts for utility services they do not use, the charity warned.