The shops, established to allow residents to access various council services in person, have seen dramatic decline in use, with visits vastly below pre-pandemic levels.
North Lanarkshire Council is to make widespread changes to its network of First Stop Shops, closing four and integrating others with housing offices.
The shops, established to allow residents to access various council services in person, have seen dramatic decline in use, with visits vastly below pre-pandemic levels.
Now the shops in Kilsyth, Moodiesburn, Viewpark and Bellshill are to close, replaced by regular surgery sessions, while those in Airdrie, Coatbridge, Motherwell, Wishaw, Cumbernauld and Shotts will be merged with local housing offices.
Despite being created to handle enquiries and transactions relating to housing, council tax, benefits, environmental services and education, demand in recent years has fallen by 85 per cent, with the council citing readily available online alternatives as the main reason for the change.
The majority of remaining interactions relate to housing, so staff are to be transferred to that department of the council. Therefore no job losses will occur due to the changes to First Stop Shops.
A consultation on the future of the network also found that bringing back cash payments would cost the council over £100,000 so the remaining shops will remain unable to process these.
The consultation used several methods to gather responses, including engagement at the annual tenants’ conference and surveys. It was also advertised by the council’s media team. In all it gathered some 300 responses with the largest demographic being pensioners.
Most who said they had ceased visiting First Stop Shops because they preferred to use online, telephone or direct debit/standing order to handle such things as paying rent.
The majority of people who said they still used First Stop Shops said they primarily visited to make payments, with around 40 per cent saying they visited for housing-related reasons or queries about council tax or benefits.
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As the changes were discussed by councillors at a committee meeting, the Conservative group called for cash payments to be reintroduced.
Councillor Sandy Watson (Airdrie South) said that the move away from in-person contact was not customer preference but a matter of people being forced to do things online, citing widespread closures of banks and building society branches.
“People were left stranded and they had no option but to try and go down a road that they didn’t particularly want to go on.”
Councillor Watson pointed out figures from the consultation which showed that half of the people who used First Stop Shops preferred to use cash, and there were still people without digital devices.
He said that a recent survey in England and Wales found 600,000 people without bank accounts and asked how many such were in Scotland and North Lanarkshire, and research by YouGov found that only three per cent of people had completely ceased to use cash and most do not support the idea of a cashless society and wanted laws to protect the right to pay using cash.
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“The council will alienate a large portion of their community, not just the elderly, who often live in a fear of digital and are wary of credit cards.”
He referred to recent news coverage of people who had lost huge amounts of money to fraud and said North Lanarkshire has an older population which could be vulnerable, so preferred to use cash, while many younger people also preferred cash as it helped them control their expenses.
“We need to look after a wide cross-section of the population who will find life harder if they don’t have the security of using cash,” he added.
SNP councillor Gary Robinson (Coatbridge West) also moved an amendment on behalf of his group. This also called for the restoration of cash payments and additionally argued that no changes should be made to the hours or locations of First Stop Shops.
He said that the council’s digital strategy included a section on inclusion which claimed the focus was on the user’s perspective and that these proposals contradicted that.
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He added that the SNP’s amendment sought to protect vulnerable people, notably the elderly and others who struggled with online technologies.
“There are people in our communities who will really struggle with the changes being proposed in this paper. They rely on cash for a variety of reasons. They rely on First Stop Shops for their interactions with this council for a variety of reasons. These reasons will not go away and will create significant issues for these people who need our help the most,” he added.
It was clarified that cash payments can still be made at 240 Paypoint locations in North Lanarkshire as well as post offices, but it would not be accepted at housing offices, and that it is not possible to receive benefits without a bank account.
Moving in favour of the recommended changes, council leader Jim Logue said this matter had been continued from 2023 to allow the consultation to take place and praised the effort that had gone into it. He added that other local authorities such as South Lanarkshire had stopped taking cash payments ten years ago, as had the majority of North Lanarkshire’s other facilities.
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He said that the offices in Cumbernauld had not taken cash for some time and not a single complaint had been received and that not going with the recommended changes would result in a “complete waste” of public money.
“There are plenty of other ways that tenants can pay. They will be supported in every way possible,” he added.
The Conservative and SNP amendments were combined but councillors voted by 13 to 12 in favour of implementing the proposed changes.
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