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ITEM CM6

 

COMMUNITY SAFETY SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

DEBT AND MONEY ADVICE

1st December 2008

Progress report

 

Membership

Cllr Jenny Hannaby

Cllr Charles Mathew

Cllr Olive McIntosh Stedman

Cllr Bill Service

 

 

 

Corporate Core

Ref CM011

 

            Why the review is taking place

 

1.      The Community Safety Scrutiny Committee appointed the Lead Group of Members to carry out this review, because it was interested in exploring the range, quality and effectiveness of debt and money advice that is being provided by a host of different agencies across Oxfordshire.  Oxfordshire County Council provides financial support to some agencies that offer debt and money advice and the impact of the recent “credit crunch” has seen an increase in the number of people seeking such advice.  Consequently, this may put pressure on the funding sources for these services.

Exploring the issues

  1. To date, we have undertaken desk-based secondary research, primary research through consultations, face-to-face interviews, Member meetings and conducted site visits.  Through these means,  we have identified the following areas that we would like the Review to be able to explore in more detail:

 

  • Communication:  The relationship between the agencies providing debt and money advice and the local authority, including how partnerships between the two can be developed in the interests of providing a transparent and effective service, should be investigated.

 

  • Information technology and access to services:  The Lead Member Group would like to look at the benefits of new information technology which is being trialled at an advice centre in Oxford that may help particular groups who are not accessing advice services, to use them in future.  Members also wish to explore the new “gateway assessment “ model at the Oxford CAB which has introduced greater effectiveness and efficiency in managing the increasing numbers and requests from clients. We would like to enable better access to debt and money advice to overcome the discrepancies between those living in urban areas and people living in rural villages.

 

  • Premises:  Concerns have been expressed by voluntary groups about premises used to provide debt and money advice. The Lead Member Group would like to further explore these concerns.

 

  • Checks and balances:  Our research has identified agencies in the public, voluntary and private sector that offer debt and money advice.  The Trading Standards Service is aware that some people receive bad advice, be it from the voluntary sector agencies, the fee charging private agencies or credit card companies. Hence, the Members would like to have the opportunity to explore further: the consistency and quality of advice that is currently being provided, the training for advisers, and agencies’ internal quality assurance checks. 

 

  • Funding:  It appears that County Council funding of CAB and Advice Centres for 2008/09 involves a commitment of £340,632.  This seems to include funding for Age Concern and Benefit Advice Workers, Phonelink, Banbury Unemployed and Benefits Project, Berinsfield Information and Volunteer Centre, Blackbird Leys Good Neighbour Scheme, the Oxfordshire Chinese Community and Advice Centre (whose annual report 2007/08 indicated that 22% of enquiries were in respect of welfare benefits but only 0.6% on debt), Rose Hill and Donnington Advice Centre and the Oxford and West Oxfordshire CABs.  The need for checks and balances applies particularly to those that we directly support.

 

3.      In addition, we note that the Northern Ireland Trading Standards Agency carried out a review that resulted in a third party agency being contracted to provide financial and debt advice to residents.  There are other models such as the Scottish local authorities, where Trading Standards departments often have their own debt and money advice services.  We would like investigate these models to assess what lessons, if any, we could take from them.

 

The next steps

 

4.      Where and when bad advice occurs and illegal money lending impacts on the client groups served by the debt and money advice agencies in Oxfordshire, are still relatively unexplored. 

 

5.      The Lead Member Group intends to visit the Debt and Money Advice Service and Illegal Money Lending Unit in the Trading Standards Department at Birmingham City Council and to research other examples of good practice.  These are likely to include:

 

·        The Northern Ireland and Scottish authorities;

·        the use of information technology;

·        the Money Advice Trust’s hosting of the Money Advice Quality Model (MAQM) project which is aiming to develop a quality assurance scheme for money advice providers across the not-for-profit, public and commercial sectors;

·        the new “Gateway” assessment model at the Oxford CAB;

·        reporting on the number of calls that our Trading Standards Service receives regarding debt, with a view to signposting callers effectively in the future;

·        examining the advice that national charitable organisations and the Credit Card Companies provide.

 

These activities will be undertaken with a view to identifying ways that the relationship between the County Council and debt advice providers can be developed effectively. 

 

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