Debt advice can be life-changing, but advisers can’t work miracles

By Sharon Collard and Jamie Evans

Two years on from the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, at least 8.5 million people in the UK need debt advice from a regulated provider, fuelled by a cost of living crisis that is stretching the finances of millions of UK households to breaking point. Even so, our research suggests that only a minority of people who would benefit from debt advice will actually seek it – a conundrum that has exercised the debt advice sector, creditors, regulators and governments for decades. Where people do seek debt advice, the evidence shows that only a minority get all the information or help they feel they need.

The Coronavirus Financial Impact Tracker was commissioned by abrdn Financial Fairness Trust in March 2020 to capture the financial impact of pandemic on UK households through a series of periodic cross-sectional online surveys conducted by YouGov and analysed by the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre. Five surveys were conducted over the course of the pandemic, the last one in October 2021.

One of the things the surveys ask about is whether people sought debt advice from any free-to-use debt advice providers (such as Citizens Advice, National Debtline, StepChange Debt Charity) or fee-charging companies. Looking at the survey findings from October 2021, we see that only 5% of UK households said they had received any spoken advice about their financial situation since the start of the pandemic; 7% had received online advice (e.g. via by WhatsApp or webchat); and 4% had received both spoken and online advice (Table 1).

Not surprisingly, households in worse financial situations were more likely to have received advice over that period – 17% of households classed as ‘in serious financial difficulty’ had received spoken advice; 26% had received online advice and 13% had received both spoken and online advice (Table 1). That still means most households ‘in serious financial difficulty’ did not get any information or help about their financial situation from a debt advice provider, even though 93% of them said thinking about their financial situation made them anxious, 85% were struggling to pay for food and/or bills, and 55% were in arrears on at least one bill/credit commitment.

It could be that government financial support and payment deferrals from lenders helped many of these households weather the financial impact of the pandemic, but such assistance is unlikely to have resolved underlying debt problems. They may also have relied on self-help and obtained the information they needed from other sources that we did not ask about in the survey.

Table 1

We also asked advice-seekers whether they received all the information or help they needed from the debt advice provider they contacted. Almost half (46%) of all advice-seekers said they only received some of the information or help they needed; and a further 14% said they received none. This picture was amplified among advice-seekers who were ‘in serious financial difficulty’, where only a quarter (25%) said they received all the information or help they needed (Table 2).

Table 2

These findings raise some fundamental questions about why people aren’t seeking help who seem to need it; but also why most advice seekers are not getting all the information or help they feel they need – particularly those ‘in serious financial difficulty’.

Despite all the positive help that debt advice agencies provide, there are limits to what can be achieved for people in serious difficulties who have little or no spare income to pay back what they owe and for whom bankruptcy or debt relief fees may be prohibitive. In some cases, debt advisers may be able to do no more than confirm there is no real tangible help available or any recourse to additional financial support. This points to the need for wider reforms outside the debt advice sector such as adequate state safety nets, real living wages and better access to debt relief.

In addition, advice-seekers may need other services such as welfare benefits advice or legal help with their debts that debt advice services can’t offer. It could also be the case that people have expectations of debt advice services that exceed the reality of what these services can offer. Addressing these questions is important to ensure that debt advice reaches more people who need it and delivers good outcomes for the people who use it.

MaPS recommissioning of debt advice services: will it meet the needs of clients in vulnerable situations?

By Jamie Evans

In recent weeks, debate has been raging about the provision of face-to-face debt advice services in England. Over 1,700 people – many of whom are frontline debt advisers – have signed a petition calling for ‘an immediate pause to the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) recommissioning of debt advice’, which the authors of the petition, the Unite Debt Advice Network, argue ‘is likely to result in cuts to funding for debt advice of up to 50%, with face-to-face debt advice particularly affected’.

MaPS, on the other hand, believes that its recommissioning exercise ‘will increase the amount of debt advice available to people in England’ and will ‘ensure services are built around customers’ needs’. It says that it has not commissioned based on channel, instead asking debt advice providers to suggest how best to meet the needs of clients using a range of different channels (including but not limited to telephony, face-to-face, virtual appointments, and webchat). In a recent meeting with We Are Debt Advisers (a network of 500 frontline debt advisers), Caroline Siarkiewicz (MaPS Chief Executive) intimated that face-to-face advice would receive 20% of the total funding allocation. We Are Debt Advisers estimates that this would be equivalent to a 16% cut in funding for face-to-face advice services.

The issue has attracted national attention, leading to a Westminster Hall debate on 1st December. A number of MPs advocated passionately for protecting face-to-face services, with Emma Hardy (MP for Kingston Upon Hull West and Hessle) arguing that ‘face-to-face advice is the only way of supporting a significant proportion of people in debt, and… a reduction in capacity and coverage will fail some of the most vulnerable in our society.’

Advisers know channel matters a lot for vulnerable clients

It certainly shouldn’t be controversial to say that different people have different needs when seeking support – whether with debt problems or any other issue they face. This means that some people will prefer digital methods of communication, others will prefer (or only be able to access) more traditional methods, and some might be perfectly happy with a combination of both.

This is something that debt advisers are well aware of.

In 2018, the Personal Finance Research Centre received grant funding from the then Money Advice Service to conduct research on debt advisers’ experiences of working with and supporting clients in vulnerable situations – including mental health problems, addictions and a range of other situations. We surveyed more than 1,500 advisers and, as part of the research, we asked if there were particular groups of clients who might be affected (negatively or positively) by a shift to digital debt advice services. What advisers told us is summarised below:

Potential impacts of digital debt advice on vulnerable client groups, according to debt advisers we surveyed (read the research here)

The results demonstrate widespread concern among frontline debt advisers about the potential impact on vulnerable clients of a shift to digital methods of debt advice. They highlighted a range of practical issues that their clients might face in accessing digital debt advice:

“Many of the people I see can’t maintain the same phone number because they can’t afford ongoing phone contracts.”

“Vulnerable clients benefit from building up a relationship with the advisor to be able to trust them enough act on the advice – which they could never get via digital delivery.”

“Clients who can’t afford to eat can’t afford internet… or [can’t afford the] fares to get to free internet.”

“[Face-to-face] we are better able to gauge their needs and abilities, e.g. via email a client can agree to carry out an action but face-to-face we can see that this causes them distress so we can support them to do it.”

Advisers reported that clients with mental health problems, cognitive impairments or learning disabilities may need information explained several times or in different ways. Advisers also highlighted the considerable challenges that clients can face in gathering or understanding paperwork, which are often dealt with quickest in-person.

The scale of vulnerability in debt advice

There are almost always pros and cons to the introduction of new technologies, as we see in long-running debates on issues like access to cash and bank branch closures. Debt advice faces many of the same fundamental questions – but a big difference is the scale of vulnerability encountered by debt advisers.

Based on our survey, we estimate that just under a third of the clients supported by advisers remotely (i.e. telephony or webchat) had disclosed a mental health problem. This rises to half of clients supported by face-to-face advice. In the Westminster Hall debate it was reported that this may rise to as much as 82% for some advisers.

Of course, not all mental health problems are necessarily incompatible with digital advice delivery. Indeed, many people with conditions like social anxiety might be unable to access advice in-person or over the phone, so methods such as webchat offer a hugely important lifeline (see, for example, research from the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute).

Getting the balance right

Getting the balance right requires a comprehensive understanding of demand for debt advice via different channels (including how well demand is actually being met at the moment). This is no easy feat, particularly when we have insufficient data on what the whole debt advice sector actually looks like. Investment to build this data would greatly improve MaPS’ ability to forecast accurately and might improve their chances of obtaining a more representative sample when consulting with advisers from different parts of the sector. It is also important to ensure research on these topics properly involves those who are digitally excluded. This is something we can all improve on.

In the meantime, it would be good to see the evidence on which decisions are currently based. MaPS is yet to publish its formal Equalities and Vulnerability Impact Assessment, so this seems a good place to start.

There are elements of MaPS’ proposals which are (hopefully) welcome from the perspective of vulnerable clients. Caroline Siarkiewicz describes how MaPS hope the new funding approach will get advisers off the ‘hamster wheel’ of dealing with one client after another, leading to more time spent with individual clients rather than simply chasing high volumes.

Whatever happens, it is clear that at present many advisers are suffering poor wellbeing due to their workload – a recent IMA survey found that 68% of those working for MaPS-funded advice organisations were dissatisfied with their workload, with two-in-five (41%) reporting that they ‘often feel stressed and anxious at work’. Many are uncertain about their future and are tired of repeating the same things over and over again, both in relation to debt advice and in terms of wider social policy. They are the experts in this arena, so decision-makers need to start listening.


Read the research here: Vulnerability: the experience of debt advisers

Voices from the frontline of debt advice – new research on supporting clients in vulnerable situations

by Sharon Collard and Jamie Evans

In this post, we explore key findings from our new research, which looks at the experiences of nearly 1,600 debt advisers when supporting people in vulnerable situations.

At the recent Talk Money conference, we launched new research, in partnership with the Money Advice Trust and the Money and Mental Health policy Institute, looking at debt advisers’ experiences of working with clients in a range of different situations that might make them ‘vulnerable’.

The research was based on a UK-wide survey of 1,573 debt advisers working in approximately 400 organisations and included new data from a survey of nearly 400 individuals with lived experience of mental health problems and debt.

The report, Vulnerability: the experience of advisers, brings together these new findings along with good practice guidance for supporting those in vulnerable situations.

So, what does the report actually tell us?

1. Vulnerability is an everyday occurrence for advisers

Firstly, it’s apparent that advisers across the sector are dealing with clients in very vulnerable situations on a regular basis.

Of the 87 clients that a typical full-time adviser deals with in a working month, they can expect 35 to disclose a mental health problem. A further seven clients tell them about an addiction of some sort, be it a gambling problem, alcohol problem or other substance addiction.

Each week, nearly two-thirds of advisers encounter at least one client with a serious physical illness or disability, over a third see someone with a learning disability and one-in-five help a client who is, or has been, in an abusive relationship.

Lastly, in the last 12 months, nearly three-quarters of advisers encountered at least one client who disclosed suicidal thoughts, and over half seriously believed that at least one client was at genuine risk of suicide.

2. Levels of vulnerability may have increased in recent years

As this is the first time that levels of vulnerability have been measured across the whole advice sector, it is hard to say precisely how things have changed over time.

However, there is certainly anecdotal evidence from the advisers we surveyed that they are seeing more people in more challenging situations than ever before – with the risk that financial vulnerability exacerbates other types of vulnerability and vice versa.

3. This may just be the tip of the iceberg

For the purpose of consistent measurement, we asked advisers in the survey to tell us about those clients who disclosed their situation, rather than all clients that they believed to be in such a situation. This means that our statistics could represent just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

Indeed, in our survey of advice clients with mental health problems, we found that as many as 44% of people with mental health problems may not disclose their condition when dealing with a debt adviser.

This could equally apply to a range of other situations, such as domestic abuse and addictions. Clients will not tell advisers everything just because they are there to help them and understanding the reasons for under disclosure is important.

4. More support is needed to help advisers deal with these situations

The primary goal of debt advisers is, of course, to help people resolve their debt and money problems; however, in many cases these financial issues cannot be resolved without considering the underlying situation.

Our data shows that more could be done here. For example, at present, 44% of advisers have not received any training on supporting clients with addictions and 56% have not received training in relation to gambling.

Such training though is on the way via the Trust’s Wiseradviser programme which is launching addictions and suicide prevention courses in the New Year.

It is also apparent that many people in vulnerable situations find it challenging to go through the debt advice process. For example, of those we surveyed with mental health problems, 48% reported that making initial contact with the advice agency was difficult, while 56% encountered difficulty in finding the information advisers needed from them.

The guidance and practical tools in our report can help advisers consider some of these issues.

5. But changes to debt advice alone are not enough

Our research also looked at the wider issues that affect advisers’ ability to support those in vulnerable situations. This highlighted the fact that many advisers felt they are working in an environment which makes it difficult for them to provide the very best support for their clients.

It takes time, money and resources to provide the right support, and in many cases advisers felt these are severely constrained. Advisers also noted that there are often situations where clients could benefit from the support of external services, but these simply do not exist locally or are already over-stretched.

While these bigger issues require co-ordination and collaboration from the advice sector and beyond, we hope our research and guidance give frontline advisers and advice organisations some useful additional tools and resources to support their invaluable work with clients in vulnerable situations.


Vulnerability: the experience of debt advisers was funded by the Money Advice Service. The report is available to download here, where you can also find data tables and a resource pack with additional tools to help advisers support those in vulnerable situations.

Further information about Wiseradviser training is available here: www.wiseradviser.org.

This article was originally published as part of the Money Advice Trust’s Thoughts at the Trust blog series. Read the original article here.