MSE News: Debt advisers to go in government cuts

Jesthar

meher wrote: »

why not run an online CAB kind of clinic here on MSE - it could be kept locked and open only to advisors and client concerned for their thread

Speaking as a geek and an admin at a small online forum, I doubt standard forum software could accomodate such a thing without requiring a lot of frequent manual intervention.

For those who are happy with message boards, the Debt Free Wannabee forum is already an excellent place for people to get support and encouragement. But as others have said, not everyone is comfortable dealing with things by e-mail or phone, let alone forums, so losing the face to face assistance the CAB could provide is going to hurt them a lot.

I'm all for sensible cutbacks, but this one does not fall into that category. £25 million is not exactly large potatoes in the grand scheme of things, and there must be better places to take it from - cancelling a few [STRIKE]junkets, er[/STRIKE] 'fact finding' trips in favour of e-mails and video conferencing seems like a far better loss of face to face communication. But I bet "that's from a different budget, sorry!"

Anyway, if there's a campaign or petition, be sure to shout it high from MSE Towers!

~Jes

I_luv_cats

What makes me sick is the fact "this is the big society" and really that means you are on your own!! It is ringing TRUE!!

Where did all the money go and when they spent all that money on stupid furniture, flowers, new signs, toilet paper counters, crazy ideas, now we have to pay the price!!! ???

mdr86

Jesthar wrote: »

Anyway, if there's a campaign or petition, be sure to shout it high from MSE Towers!

You don't have to wait for an organised campaign or petition - email your MP anyway! http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/

mel12

This is such a shame Perhaps we could organise a petition ourselves?

mel12

Just found this site - anyone wanna help with wording for a petition?
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/steps

Optimist

mel12 wrote: »

Just found this site - anyone wanna help with wording for a petition?
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/steps

That was closed for petitions in December. It is supposed to be moving over to the Directgov site but as of yet they are still working on it and it is scheduled to be "sometime" in 2011

snowqueen555

I used to volunteer at my local debt charity, it was ALWAYS busy but they were not open full office hours.

Would independent charities like this be affected? If I remember they were funeded by FIF and LSC

mel12

Originally Posted by mel12
Just found this site - anyone wanna help with wording for a petition?
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/steps

That was closed for petitions in December. It is supposed to be moving over to the Directgov site but as of yet they are still working on it and it is scheduled to be "sometime" in 2011

doh! How about hosting one here?

http://www.petition.co.uk/

fatbelly

This is from the 'other thread' but I just realised it would be useful here:

debt_doctor wrote: »

Hi,

These important debates are happening next week in the Commons.....

Tuesday 8 February
9.30 am – 11 am raised by Yvonne Fovargue MP
- Future funding of independent debt advice

Wednesday 9 February
4.00pm – 4.30pm raised by Jack Dromey MP
- Future of the Citizens Advice Bureaux

It would be very helpful if you could all ask your MP to attend the House at these times (if you think they are sympathetic to the cause!) A quick e-mail is all it needs.


Thanks

DD

Please e-mail your MP and ask him/her to attend.

You can use writetothem.com - just putting your postcode in will bring up your MP's details and a template for an e-mail that will go direct to him/her.

Even if it's too late to change their plans about whether they will attend the debates, it will still let them know how this will impact their community.

davidgmmafan

This is very bad news and a very bad idea. I thought to myself when it came out that Consumer Focus was going, but the useless Ofgem was staying, I wonder if this is the plan for growth? Sweep away consumer protection and advice and hey presto lots of money will be made. Of course some of it will be made by dodgy companies who won't bother to pay tax, but you know some may go to the Treasury.

This really is the most pointless rubbish. Look I know there need to be cuts, so do the opposition deep down, but what's the point in making cuts that will do more harm than good? Consider for a moment what will happen if this VITAL service is removed. People won't get good debt advice or, if they do they will have to pay for it.

Two major problems with this first people with modest sums may be ignored by companies as they'll not be able to make much from them OR they'll work with them with thier fees meaning virtually nothing is coming of the debt thus prolonging the amount of time the person is in debt. The other option is that things will get worse, because people cannot access the advice leading to more people becoming insolvent. So how exactly does anyone benefit from this? Anyone?

Will e-mail my MP, it certainly can't hurt. BTW I'm trying not to be political here because I know we're in a big hole, bit I can't square this with the big society. The sums are trifling given the size of the deficit. Same applies to Consumer Focus, its already paid for itself many times over with the refunds it secured from NPower (something Ofgem totally botched).

Think again please you halfwits.