“We all know that the ‘debt advice industry’ needs
to continue to raise its game – we need to help
more people, and the industry needs to show that
it is helping people in the right way. The Financial
Conduct Authority announced earlier this year
that the quality of the advice delivered by
some fee-charging debt management firms was
‘unacceptably low’ and they also said that there
is still room for improvement in the free sector.
ALISTAIR CHISHOLM
Creditor Liaison
Policy Officer
Citizens Advice Bureau
VISITS TO THE
CAB WEBSITE
20mil
IN 2014
BREAKDOWN
OF SERVICES
28%
4%
68%
Webchat
New Phoneline
Other
8
01.
“ WE ALL KNOW THAT THE ‘DEBT
ADVICE INDUSTRY’ NEEDS TO
CONTINUE TO RAISE ITS GAME.”
The free sector has the challenge of preparing to
clean up after the unacceptable practice in the feecharging sector. But our sector too needs to do better.
TEN AT TEN.
UKAR ARENA | A NEWSLETTER FOR DEBT ADVISORS | AUTUMN 2015 | ISSUE 10 | UKAR-ARENA.CO.UK
Everyone in our sector needs to show that they
place clients’ wishes and needs first, and the task
of protecting or improving the quality of advice while
helping more people is not to be underestimated.
The big challenge for Citizens Advice is adapting
our high quality advice process so that it can meet
the changing needs of our clients, and reach more
people. We need to do this in the context of a
challenging public spending environment, and with
far-reaching changes in the housing market, social
security provision and labour market.
Consumers’ debt problems are always with us, but
they never stay the same. There has been a clear
move away from secured debt and mainstream
credit to unsecured debt in the last 4 years, and
priority, public sector and household debts are
becoming more significant for our hard working
advisers. We have seen particular problems with
arrears on council tax, rent and other household bills.
In many areas, local Citizens Advice advisers work
in helpful partnerships with local authorities and
local landlords to help our clients. A challenge is to
develop and maintain these relationships as welfare
reform and public spending reductions change these
organisations locally.
We want people to be able access our service when
and where they want to, and to be sure they get a
consistent service. We are staying true to our past
and changing fast. In the last quarter we helped 28%
of our clients by phone and 4% by webchat. Last year
we had over 20 million visits to our website. We need
to keep up the fast pace of change in the channels
we use to make sure that we are achieving our aim
of offering help to everyone, whatever the problem.”
The views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors and do not reflect those of UKAR.
9