"Don't cut £25m of debt counselling..." blog discussion

CarolAlexander-Reid

I work for Bristol Debt Advice Centre, we manage the FIF South West partnership project. We also have two specialist debt advisers who directly work on the project and have helped thousands of people over the 5 years that it has been in existence. The FIF project is so important as it emphasis face to face advice (proven to be much more effective that other forms of advice) and can also help a broader range of people than that offered by legal aid. As a partnership, we will lose almost £1million of funding and as a charity we face losing £200k per year. Losing the FIF funding is bad enough but the Government are also consulting on cutting legal aid for civil law cases... if this happens, People who face extreme financial hardship will have no access to representation. The consultation on this ends on 14th February, please sign this petition to show your support in saying no to these cuts: gopetition.com/petitions/say-no-to-legal-aid-cuts

lemonjelly

14th february - time is clearly of the essence to you Carol.

Good luck!

CarolAlexander-Reid

I work for Bristol Debt Advice Centre, we manage the FIF South West partnership project. We also have two specialist debt advisers who directly work on the project and have helped thousands of people over the 5 years that it has been in existence. The FIF project is so important as it emphasis face to face advice (proven to be much more effective that other forms of advice) and can also help a broader range of people than that offered by legal aid. As a partnership, we will lose almost £1million of funding and as a charity we face losing £200k per year. Losing the FIF funding is bad enough but the Government are also consulting on cutting legal aid for civil law cases... if this happens, People who face extreme financial hardship will have no access to representation. The consultation on this ends on 14th February, please sign this petition to show your support in saying no to these cuts: gopetition.com/petitions/say-no-to-legal-aid-cuts

segarrett

I'd go with the letters to MPs and social networking.

Every MP will have some constituents affected by debt. Every MP will also be affected by this as some of the people that the CAB can't cope with will inevitably end up in MPs surgeries.

On the couple of occasions that I've written to my MP I've had a proper considered response: so if he had to reply to a whole load of people, he'd notice.

You can give people an idea of what to write and encourage them to put things in their own words. You could also give (say) five different aspects, that people could select as they wish and preferably make personal. This also forces the MP to write a specific letter rather than have a set of words they use for them all.

Social networking tends to spread the word: use it to encourage letter writing. It also get picked up by the media.

frames1_uk

I'm a FIF administrator, we've stopped making appointments from 1st March and have informed all new clients that they won't be able to see the money advice caseworker. When the news gets through to all our existing FIF clients, there are going to be many devastated and extremely vulnerable. We deal with many mental health clients, who see us as a lifeline. Yes, we've been given redundancy notice. It is outrageous that such highly skilled and compassionate people as the FIF caseworkers, as to be wasted, at a time when the community needs them most.

lostinrates

I read this linked from the Debate Economy etc Board. As I was reading the thread there I started to think: if this funding is so essential and beneficial why are we as a country collectively in the high amount of debt still? If debt problems are rising despite these services being available perhaps they are not addressing the problem. The long term solution would be the campaign going for increased financial education...as an adult I'd sign up to anything available through my local Adult Ed. The shorter term solution might be different to the current one if the problem is still increasing.

RAS

A month ago, I would have said, "Do not bother, Martin" because the Government was impervious to any challenge on financial savings.

Having seen how the school sport, school music and woodland sales seem to be going, I think it is worth making an effort.

I agree that you need to move away from "the poorest in society" violin appeal and the idea that this happens to people who are !!!!less.

People like Carol need to ensure that their MPs and their public know how many people they have advised in the last years and how many were FIF-funded ( as per the brief on the BR forum). And the extent to which demand has risen. Crude facts.

The other side of it is the need to get across personal stories which are about people who have got into debt for reasons of relationship break-down, perfidy and ill-health. If you want the support of middle England, then you need to advance stories about people to whom they can directly relate.And to explain why a £1m phone and internet based service is not adequate.

Not infrequently, people have so little understanding of the documents or situation they face, that they struggle to frame their on-line question appropriately. It does not matter what their class or education, unless they earn enough to put just about anything in front of a lawyer or accountant, people face demands that are new and for which they are ill-equipped. One of the classic cases that turned up on DFW concerned a couple who had both lost their jobs and had been spending £7,500 per month, half on a mortgage. They planned to sell the house urgently and rent, but were completely unaware of the limitations of the Local Housing Allowance.

And I have lost count of the number of people whose relationship breaks down and who did not realise that they are jointly and severally liable for Council tax, mortgages, rent and joint debts. All too often one party who is a bit naive ends up burdened with all the debt from a relationship.

Having spent time over the last few years trying to help people in debt, what comes out time and again is that there is no substitute for person contact, some of the time.

Very often people have documents that you need to read in sequence to understand the case. Or they have a vital document that they forget to mention until some way down the line when a creditor rejects their first response. And in some cases, that is vital because they only had a small window of opportunity to respond to legal documents. We can spend hours on line drawing infomration out of a poster which could be dealt with in a few minutes by someone face to face, seeing the important documents.

RAS

lostinrates wrote: »

I read this linked from the Debate Economy etc Board. As I was reading the thread there I started to think: if this funding is so essential and beneficial why are we as a country collectively in the high amount of debt still? If debt problems are rising despite these services being available perhaps they are not addressing the problem. The long term solution would be the campaign going for increased financial education...as an adult I'd sign up to anything available through my local Adult Ed. The shorter term solution might be different to the current one if the problem is still increasing.

LIR

I agree, but the biggest issue is that Adult Ed is pretty much finished in much of the country and has to cover its costs anywhere it does operate.

This would help people avoid debt in the future but does not deal with those stung by negative equity, relationship breakdown, ill-health, job loss etc, now.

And even education does not solve some of the intractable problems behind some of the debt people acquire.

And if I take one example, young people in rented housing whether they are students or on low income receiving Local Housing Allowance (LHA is only paid to those under 26 for shared housing).

If the ideal tenant signs with others for rent, or any other bill jointly:

1. They are legally responsible for paying the whole debt if any of the other tenants leaves the house or fails to contribute.
2. If any of the tenants have a poor credit rating, it wrecks everyone elses.

On the other hand if they each take responsibility for one bill, it is very easy for one tenant to receive money from the other tenants and then fail to pay that bill. The favourite seems to be Council Tax, which takes longest for the problem to surface but has the worst effect because bailiffs are involved.

Beggared if you do and beggared if you do not.

Best pals and boy/girlfriends are quite capable of doing both these things to people they live with.

Jacks_xxx

Oh just leave it.

The government know best.

When everybody in debt crisis goes bankrupt in the absence of any better advice that will be brilliant for the economy.

Especially if they had secured debt and end up homeless as well.

What's that you say?

It will cost more in the long term???

Yes it will, but when that government have to spend, spend, spend, to repair the damage this government has done, this government will be able to use that as a stick to beat them with.

And round and round we go again.

CarolAlexander-Reid

We have been making massive efforts to raise awareness with our local MP's, and have been encouraging our clients to write too, as have many of the other advice agencies in Bristol. We campaigned outside the Legal Services Commission offices on Monday and have appeared on the local BBC and ITV news. We've also written to the current Housing Minister with some hard facts of what face to face debt advice really means to individuals and society.... however, the current Government seem to be making an active choice to ignore the positive effects that specialist and impartial debt advice can have on individuals, families and communities.