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Debt advice services struggling as consumer debt hits £1.5 Trillion
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A call to the government's debt
advice line costs £51, as opposed to the average £265 cost of a face-to-face meeting |
Commenting on the publication of the National Audit Office’s report on the help provided to over-indebted consumers, South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, said:
“As of November 2009, UK consumer debt was an eye-watering £1.5 trillion, so it is unsurprising that around one in ten consumers struggle to keep up with their bills and credit payments.
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“At present, the government is not always using the most cost-effective means of reaching people in need of help with their debts. This is despite the fact that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has spent £143 million on providing advice to people who can no longer afford to service their debts. The recession has caused demand for debt advice to rise much faster than capacity and some people in real need of help have been made to wait for over a month or have even been turned away. “It costs an average of £265 to provide face-to-face debt advice, but telephone advice costs just £51 and internet advice is cheaper still. “One in four people who saw a debt adviser face-to-face say they would actually have preferred debt advice over the telephone or on the internet. “The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills needs to use the money it deploys more effectively in order to address the gap between the demand for debt advice and the department's current capacity to provide it”.
4 February 2010 |
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| © Richard Bacon 2010 | ||||||||
NAO REPORT: