The Food Club is a highly innovative partnership between Fair for You and Iceland Foods, providing small sum, interest-free credit to a demographic that has been hit hard by the cost-of-living crisis. Our evaluation indicates it has been highly successful: reducing the use of interest bearing credit for essentials, and helping people stay on top of their household bills. And it has improved diets; stopped children from going hungry, and improved both physical and mental health in many cases.

In 2021, the Money and Pensions Service ('MaPS') changed the way it estimated the number of people in need of debt advice. Undertaking secondary analysis of the MaPS 'Debt Need Survey' for 2023 we find its approach to be overly restrictive, excluding 5 million people who clearly have a need for advice. The MaPS approach is so restrictive that it even excludes a third of people who are receiving debt advice from its definition of needing this.

With increasing numbers of council on the brink of declaring effective bankruptcy and increased Council Tax arrears, there is an urgent need to reform local government finance. In this briefing we set out our position and call for improvements in funding for councils, debt advice commissioning, and the Council Tax collection regime.