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.
CfRC and Debt Justice joint response to HM Treasury's proposals for the Statutory Debt Repayment Plan ('SDRP') calls for major revisions, including the incorporation of a mechanism to write down debts sold to debt collection agencies and for public scrutiny of the Standard Financial Statement 'trigger figures' used to determine how much debtors will need to pay back through the plans.
In 2016 we were jointly commissioned by UNISON and the TUC to undertake an analysis of over-indebtedness in Britain. The report highlighted how traditional measures of the debt burden understated this because they fail to take account of rising living costs. We construct a new measure based not on gross incomes but on the level of interest payments relative to the available surplus of income over non debt related expenditure. We call for this measure to be used to guide future policy interventions.