The charity analysed polling from the research company YouGov which found that 8 per cent of people had missed a debt repayment at least once in the past year.

Considering Scotland’s population estimates that works out to 368,249 people.

Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) is running the “Stressed about Debt” campaign, which encourages people who are worried about their bills or stressed about debt to seek advice from the Citizens Advice network.

People can go to www.cas.org.uk/stressed and pick an advice route that works for them, such as online self-help tools, online advice pages or one to one advice from their local CAB.

The CAB service helps improve people’s financial situation and for some this includes debt write -off. Since last spring CABs have helped write off over £11 million worth of debt, with the average amount written off being over £12,600 per client.

The value of debt dealt with by CABs last winter was £23 million. This represents a 25 per cent increase in the value of debt brought to CABs and a 17 per cent increase in people seeking debt advice compared to last year.

The average debt a complex debt client brings to a CAB is £8,876.17. A complex debt is when someone is seeking debt advice for multiple debts at once.

Myles Fitt, CAS financial health spokesperson, said: “There is a vicious cycle element to debt, especially during a cost-of-living crisis. Your income isn’t covering your outgoings to you fall into debt as a result – either through using commercial credit or falling behind on your bills to creditors. But the cost of those additional repayments means your income needs to stretch even further and suddenly you are trapped in a vicious cycle.

“We want people who are stressed about their debts to seek advice and support from the Citizens Advice network. You don’t need to go to a CAB in-person to get advice, instead you can check our online advice pages or use our interactive self-help tools.

“Our network gets real results for people – last year people who saw a gain having sought advice were more than £3,700 better off. Our advice is impartial, confidential and crucially free – we don’t charge for our advice, and we never will.”