Stats and info on the DRO Hubs

fatbelly

Interesting article by Debt Camel

https://debtcamel.co.uk/dro-hubs-2023/

This covers the period in which Stepchange (charity) went from the largest provider of DROs to zero, and Money Wellness (commercial firm aka Gregory Pennington) went from zero to becoming the major provider.

A distortion entirely caused and engineered by the government's MaPS throwing huge sums of money into the mix (just not at Stepchange)

sourcrates

Nice to see the IVA stats going down, but agree with the point on the DRO £90 payment within 28 days, why charge at all?

£90 quid is neither here nor there, it seems randomly plucked out of thin air, clients who can`t afford to pay their debts are unlikely to be able to find the fee, make DRO`s free, isn`t that the point of funding in the first place?

It was obvious GP were going to become the main DRO provider, one look at their fancy new website could tell you that.

fatbelly

I think they were handed 37 million to provide debt advice and 7 million to do DROs. Sounds like they had friends in the right places

sourcrates

Another thing I noticed, the DMP they offer is now free of charge, thanks to the 37 mill I guess.

ToxtethO'Grady

GP referred one of my clients for an IVA when her budget was balanced after she reduced smoking a lot, her PIP was increased from standard to enhanced due to her MH resulting in her being detained under the MHA. She saved up the fee and paid it on the day they received the referral. 

They said her debts were above £30K and said IVA only way to go.  I contacted all the creditors and ran more credit reports. Still under £30K by £6K according to my sums. Sent it all to GP and asked for response, they couldn't talk to me due to GDPR they said. The client sent it and asked for a response, this was in December, still waiting.

I would love to say this was an isolated case but it isn't and our client base are people with significant MH issues and need their debts gone to help with their recovery. Write offs haven't worked so we go for DRO or BR, I'm preferring a BR now rather than a DRO as it's easier and less anxiety inducing for our clients.

Their referral portal is basically the DRO portal anyway so you do all the work for them, upload all the evidence, and they just click the button to apply it feels like.

PurpleMouse5

try another provider - CMA for example.