Face to Face Debt Advice Project
As part of the first Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF) announced in the 2004 Pre Budget Report, £45 million was allocated to increasing the provision of free face-to-face debt advice in England and Wales up until April 2008.
The primary aim of the project is to deliver an increase in the number of advisers, and hence in the number clients assisted, within geographical areas and/or social groups both characterised by high financial exclusion.
A Bid Request Document to attract grant applications was launched in late 2005. Following careful scrutiny of the dozens received, a total of 16 final bids for a share of the fund were approved in March 2006. The selected bids involve many independent advice providers as well as Citizens Advice Bureaux. They include three national projects, one for Wales, and one for each English region.
The projects target specific geographic areas or social groups where financial exclusion is a known problem. Many are specially created partnerships between Citizens Advice Bureaux, members of the Advice UK network and other independent advice providers.
Research has shown that although debt advice is readily available in many forms, for example, telephone help lines and the internet, people with severe or complicated debt often need to talk to someone face-to-face, and are often the hardest to reach.
The Department has worked closely with leading organisations like Citizens Advice, AdviceUK, the Money Advice Trust and the Advice Services Alliance, who represent the vast majority of current advice provision, to drive this work forward. We are very grateful to all those who have helped us deliver such a successful project in which around 500 new advisers have been recruited, trained and deployed and over 143,000 clients seen and helped.
On 14 March 2007, the Treasury announced that there would be a new FIF in the spending period from April 2008 to 2011. On 6 December 2007, the Treasury detailed that the debt advice budget of this FIF would total £76m. The Treasury announced a top up of £9m on 9 May 2008 so making for a budget of £85m in the current three year Spending Period. This allows support for the infrastructure in place, and providing debt advice so successfully, to continue.
Evaluation Report
The project was independently evaluated in the first half of 2007 and the Report and BERR's response is on the right hand side. A second evaluation follows this up in the first half of 2008 and this will be published later in the year.
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