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Post by Patrick Torsney on Feb 5, 2011 11:44:06 GMT 1
Video footage including the Mary Ward Legal Centre, this time in response to Government refusing to continue Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF) funding and the subsequent fallout
This piece was broadcast on BBC Breakfast News on 1st February 2011
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Post by Patrick Torsney on Feb 5, 2011 11:46:24 GMT 1
By way of background and just so we are clear what we are losing here, the FIF initiative meant total of £130m was allocated by the last government to increase the provision of free face-to-face debt advice, focusing on areas and social groups suffering from high proportions of financial exclusion Sixteen advice providers, including Citizens Advice, were selected by the Department of Trade and Industry – now the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – to share the money, and since 2006 these services have helped: • 379,000 people manage more than £6billion of debt • 3,000 families stay in their homes, resulting in a £150million saving to the courts and mortgage lenders in court and repossession costs • create an estimated £700million in annual cost savings for the NHS because of avoided mental health problems and stress • creditors recover an estimated £300million more of their debt than they would have recovered without the service These figures were taken from an article in the Guardian on the 1st February, which you can read here: www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/feb/01/debt-advice-funding-axed |
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