We need to talk about debt advice (again)

sourcrates

Government, and" Mr nom dom sunak" in particular have gone very quiet with regard to the cost of living crisis, not much being said right now, nor much mention of people getting into debt over this either.

Cutting funding for debt advice agencies at a time of national crisis is a typical tory response, which they will have to reverse surely.

It`s just a shame Boris isn`t still in charge, as he can backtrack with the best of them !!

fatbelly

Boris reminds me of driving down Cornish country lanes. Spends as much time reversing as driving forward.

Yes the media have gone quiet on cost of living too. How many threads do we have on various boards where people are trying to cope with massive hikes in mortgage payments?

At work I would say for half of debt clients the debts are not the issue - they have no money or access to any until the next UC payment in 3/4 weeks

fatbelly

WADA has today (29th November') published a new briefing concerning the ‘state of debt advice’.  

The briefing follows consultation with advisers from around the country last month and sets out their priorities for the forthcoming Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) consultation on its new debt advice commissioning strategy (expected early next year).

Chief amongst these are concerns about a chronic lack of capacity, the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy, and develop a five year workforce strategy to address low morale and recruitment and retention problems.

Our front-line advisers report:

• Just under half of their services have had to reduce capacity in the past year.
• More than half report that people are now having to wait longer for an appointment, with one in five having to wait more than a month.
• 87% had found it difficult or impossible to recruit to vacant debt adviser posts with respondents citing poor remuneration, lack of long-term funding, and the stress of the job as key factors.
• Unnecessary bureaucracy and a lack of guidance concerning appropriate quality assessment processes is wasting resources. Nearly three-quarters of advisers report no progress to tackle this over the past year.
• Funding cuts to community-based services have been counter-productive. Clients referred to national agencies are not being provided with appropriate casework support in many cases. Advisers report that none of the national agencies they referred to had dealt with the client’s priority debts and only 5% had entered the client into an appropriate and affordable solution. 87% of advisers reported their clients returned for local advice as a result.