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

wobblywizard

I do agree that it is a vital service for many who otherwise have nowhere else to turn to. I was at risk of being evicted when my housing officer told me I'm eligable for free debt advice and she made me an appointment with the CAB debt advisor. I was in such a state with my debts after being self-employed quite unsuccessfully and then losing my part time job. I ended up with a debt relief order which was a huge weight off my mind, I'm now back in college hoping to start my degree this September. There's no way I could be back on track without the advice I was given by the CAB.

fatbelly

missnikkai wrote: »

I do agree that it is a vital service for many who otherwise have nowhere else to turn to. I was at risk of being evicted when my housing officer told me I'm eligable for free debt advice and she made me an appointment with the CAB debt advisor. I was in such a state with my debts after being self-employed quite unsuccessfully and then losing my part time job. I ended up with a debt relief order which was a huge weight off my mind, I'm now back in college hoping to start my degree this September. There's no way I could be back on track without the advice I was given by the CAB.

One of the points that has been made about the proposed cut in funding is that the 500 FIF-funded advisers are nearly all Approved Intermediaries for DROs. You'll know that DROs have to be done through an Approved Intermediary so that specialist debt advice is given as part of the process.

I believe CABs do around 70% of the total number.

Making 500 AIs redundant will therefore severely limit accessability to DROs at a time that the government is encouraging them as an simpler alternative to full bankruptcy.

Not exactly joined-up thinking, is it?

ricbureau

You are absolutely right. I am an approved intermediary by the Insolvency Service and i am a Money Adviser with Cab.On my own i have submitted 111 DRO's applications between April 2009 and July 2010(Breckland,East Anglia). Re the full bankruptcy i have lost the count....


Briefing on end of FIF funding

Summary:
Government has been the key sponsor of debt advice services through the FIF (Financial Inclusion Fund) established six years ago in areas of deprivation or where there has been difficulty accessing debt advice.

The current round of funding ends on 31 March 2011. A Treasury review of these services is ongoing and there has been no announcement on whether or not there funding will be continued after this.

Many Citizens Advice Bureaux are facing cuts as a result of the imminent loss of funding. CAB have had to close their doors to new clients and redundancy notices have gone out to almost 1,000 paid staff. including a core professional group of 486 trained money advisers, though some advisers had already left the service in December 2010.

Key statistics:
• In 2009/10 Citizens Advice assisted 580,000 people with 2.4 million debt problems, an increase of 23 per cent.
• To date the total value of debts dealt with under FIF is £4.2 billion. The average level of debt per client is £15,919.
• Research carried out by the Friends Provident Foundation found that where independent advice has been given creditors can expect to recover an extra £1,100 per client on average.
• According to a report by the Money Advice Trust at any given time up to 5 million people report arrears on consumer credit, failure to keep up with mortgage payments or that they find meeting credit commitments ‘a heavy burden’. Of these just 1 in 6 seek advice.

FIF successes:
• A survey of 1,300 clients in the North East in 2009 found that 95 per cent of CAB respondents reported a high level of satisfaction with the service and felt it had made a real difference to their lives.
• In a similar survey in Swansea, 86.7 per cent of respondents felt that the advice given to them made a lot, or some, difference to their health.
• The services has assisted over 100,000 people a year to resolve their debt problems.

Key messages:
• A decision from government is imperative for two reasons –
o To avoid unnecessary losses of highly skilled and trained staff if further funding is made available and/or
o To enable bureaux to wind-down the service
• There is huge demand for FIF debt advice services, which have proven highly successful
• If FIF debt advice services close current clients will have nowhere to go.

vivatifosi

Ok, some ideas:

* FIF caseworkers, the way your stats are presented aren't helping your case, so people are satisfied with your service? Doesn't get to the crux of the matter. You need to work together to get your heads round the problem: 1) give real, tangible examples of how much more it would cost the government if you hadn't helped (eg loss of housing etc). 2) speak to local GPs and ask them if they can put an approximate cost on the mental health costs of supporting people with debt issues (without specifics or anything that would breach data protection of course). 3) identify where these people will go (or not) once you go away and highlight the pitfalls of this. Remember: this government responds to impacts on pound signs, not satisfaction surveys. Do what you can to prove the cost of not doing this is way higher.

* All: petition your MPs for this to be one area of funding to be ringfenced, funded by the bank levy. Failing that, go for big lottery funding, but I'm wary of impact of this on other charities.

* FIF caseworkers in conjunction with IT bods: is there any aspect of this at all that can be removed from face-to-face time? Is it possible to build a website along the lines of www.entitledto.co.uk that answers the questions for some, so that in a time of rationing advice some people can access advice cheaply, whereas others can still come in for full FIF sessions?

* Martin - speak to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall re the Fish Fight campaign and how he set it up. He's gone from a TV programme about what fish we should be eating to having 630,000 people sign his petition. This is a far more important issue but it has to be emotive to hit people. It has to be about the reality of what happens when the advice isn't given and people fold - and the consequential cost to the state - use ludicrous examples like he did to wind up the public about how farcical the situation is. People act when they are passionate about something and/or angry!

immoral_angeluk

I've been trying to start a twitter hashtag campaign. see #savethecab for details!

smileyt_2

I've signed the petition, and posted it to my facebook page. I don't hold out much hope as it hasn't even reached 2000 signatures yet.

COME ON PEOPLE, SIGN!

bundance

This state is becoming more like a dictatorship. Problems thrust on the people through no fault of their own. Debt records rising. Funding for help and advice been taken away. Feeling silenced by number 10, as they announce they dont do petitions. Many will be affected by debt.

Getting people of benefits and into work? pah! It looks to me, that due to the redundancies it looks like people are getting kicked out of work, and onto benefits. More people than ever with money worries.

Money worries are capable of breaking up relationships and families which can lead onto debt problems. There is a chance that the less debt advice there is, more people willl chose destructive desperate ways to deal with debt and may even increase their debt. Crime may even increase as a result.

I say, while we are waiting for ideas onto how to create £100,000 signatures, carry out some of martins suggestions to get some numbers for the petition, and at the same time, keep this thread open so more good ideas can be shared. If we dont get the numbers for the petition, at least we willl have made a bit of money, but, a lot can be accomplished in a week.

• Start a social networking campaign: See if we can get this around Twitter and Facebook to get people aware of what’s happening and build a groundswell of public opinion.
• Ask people to donate: These are all charities (even the CAB) but not many realise that, so telling people that and asking if they can afford that they donate would be a practical way to raise funds.
• Do an MSE 50p campaign: On the back of the above, for those who can’t donate, in the past i.e. for the Haiti disaster, we’ve given money on top of the usual MSE charity fund, (which already includes debt counselling) by donating 50p for each genuine new recipient of the weekly email – we could do this for the CAB. This way those who can’t afford to donate can spread the message and feel they’re doing something (see other click and give models).

meher

lemonjelly wrote: »

It seems disingenuous to promote a big society idea, then remove an exemplary organisation which provides volunteering opportunities.

We are also in a situation where more than ever, people need access to good, accurat and independent money advice.

I came across this outrage a couple of times among the oldstyle chatters and one of them expressing deep concern for their client group who lose out, across threads. Since then I've been meaning to ask: may I ask you what's stopping you from volunteering to continue to provide the service if you feel so much about it.

As for the idea behind this big society and community cohesion, as I understand, is to create networks, help one another and to nationalise a charitable mind-set. In that respect Cameron is probably not keeping his promise when he makes community services a casualty in all this. Just that I happen to believe it is possible to carry on community services without expecting the state to keep fleecing the wealthy, if only people kept their side of the bargain. Whilst it's trendy to express outrage and be aspirational, I'm genuinely interested in what's stopping people to actually run these services, that is, if you mean what you say, that is if cab was that fantastic; if not, then cab was just a cliche and not a service that was benefiting anyone but some people who lost out of their main stream jobs keeping theselves occupied. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if only I understand the premise of this outrage.

meher

bundance wrote: »

Start a social networking campaign: See if we can get this around Twitter and Facebook to get people aware of what’s happening and build a groundswell of public opinion.
Ask people to donate: These are all charities (even the CAB) but not many realise that, so telling people that and asking if they can afford that they donate would be a practical way to raise funds.
Do an MSE 50p campaign:

I'm not yet on Fb but Fb surely must be a good idea and will join if MSE starts a movement to affect change. I've some friends who actually started an fb group and practically brought a reputed organisation abroad on it's knees on an ethics issue. It was amazing to follow the group discussions and support with many of them donating huge sums for it to be a success. I don't know anything about twitter but it seems to be popular. Social networking is certainly the best idea. As for funds may be mse can team up with credit card issuers, have a credit card and the proceeds to go into debt clinics. There are so many people expressing an interest - let them switch cards, use mse branded credit card; also instead of cash backs and points, all of that can go into mse charity.

chaos63

bundance wrote: »

by donating 50p for each genuine new recipient of the weekly email – we could do this for the CAB.

As I have mentioned before, please remember this is about The Financial Inclusion Fund and not just CAB!:)

I am a FIF Approved Intermediary working for a small independent advice centre and there are many more of these up and down the country- please dont forget us!:j

We need to have loads of publicity,and get on the national news and into national newspapers.The general public are not really aware of FIF or the implications of it ceasing.
Demonstrations are good - we had one locally against Legal Aid Cuts and were on local news and front page of local paper.Basically we need to put as much pressure on the government as possible.They already have a bad press lets make it worse!!:mad: