Member Article

Debt advisors can’t take anymore work

Hundreds of debt advisers have reportedly stopped taking on new cases because their funding is to be axed next month.

For the past five years, the £25m-a-year Financial Inclusion Fund has been paying for about 500 specialists in England and Wales to give free advice.

But the cash is due to run out in March and the government has said it will not renew the fund.

The news means that advisers face redundancy at a time when demand for their advice is forecast to grow.

The debt advisers affected have been sent redundancy letters and been told to stop taking on any new clients, other than those with the simplest problems.

The Money Advice Trust, a charity which promotes independent help for people with debt problems, forecasts that 200,000 extra requests for free debt advice are expected this year, taking the total to a record 1.6 million

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .