Debt advice in the post-pandemic landscape

As MaPS carries out it’s role as a commissioner for debt advice services across England we wanted to make sure we had an up to date qualitative view on how services are meeting customers needs.

While the core needs and desires of customers seeking debt advice are the same, the pandemic and subsequent pressures on living costs have had a lasting impact on client circumstances as well as the service delivery methods.

Two Demographic shifts noted across the sector:

• Deepening vulnerability and complexity, intensive cases
• ‘Never been in debt before’ middle income, homeowners

Despite the pandemic, the fundamental desires and needs of these customers remain broadly the same.

• Improving clients’ financial situation: Finding effective and affordable debt solutions that are appropriate for clients, increasing their income through the budgeting process, and building savings to reduce reliance on credit.
• Enhancing clients’ financial skills and knowledge: Teaching clients how to budget, prioritise bills and payments, improving understanding of financial products, and how to deal with unexpected expenses.
• Fostering a more positive outlook: Helping clients to be confident in their own ability to improve their financial situation, feeling motivated to take responsibility, and teaching clients to maintain these changes over a long period of time.

The client experience was greatly influenced by the perceived impact of debt, their sense of obligation and how this is fulfilled or not by the advised solution and the customers financial capability.

The Sector responded quickly to the pandemic incorporating a variety of new channels into advice with the loss of in-person services.

While the channel diversity has been maintained since the end of the pandemic there is further opportunity to incorporate them in a more strategic way to optimise the client journey.

We hope these findings will be useful for:

• Organisations interested in bidding for MaPS community based commissioning
• Client experience or business analysts developing debt advice journeys in a community based setting.
• Policy makers with an interest in the experience of people in debt.

The research and report was created by Revealing Reality, and commissioned by the Money and Pensions Service.