Latest news

13 December 2010

MAPS issues two press releases on issues arising from money advice work

MAPS has just completed the first year of running the DAME (domestic abuse, money and education) advice service. Advice about financial problems is provided to survivors of domestic abuse to help them move forward after the abuse and to deal with any debts that have arisen. We recently issued a press release to raise awareness of the importance of our work to coincide with the Activism Against Gender Violence campaign. Please click here to read more………

In contrast the ‘Money and Energy advice’ project funded by EDF Energy Trust Fund began on 1st October 2010. Although the service is new our dedicated adviser has already identified several barriers to people getting the best deal from their energy provider. Click here for more information...

 

1 November 2010

DAME project - example of collaborative working on NCVO website

MAPS has been working on the DAME (Domestic Abuse, Money and Education) project for over a year now and we have supported over 70 clients with their financial problems. Referrals are made direct from refuges and support services to the DAME project.

Our experience of working with Women's Aid, a large national charity, has just been published by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) as an example of good collaboration between a small and a large charity, Use this link to read the full case study:

www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/dame-project

7 September 2010

CIH event - The Future of Financial Inclusion in the Housing Sector

MAPS provides advice services to many housing organisations,  and this one day event run by the Chartered Institute of Housing will be of interest to many housing sector staff with responsibility for income collection, strategy and policy making, financial inclusion and community investment.

Click on the link to find out more:

http://www.cih.org/events/seminars/futurefi10/index.html

A leaflet covering MAPS services will be available to all delegates:

MAPS Promotional Leaflet

A new service to provide an arrears and debt management payment plan to the housing sector is expected to be available very soon. If you would like to find out more about this please contact CEO Gail Devries on 01323 635999.

9 August 2010

EDF Energy Trust awards funding for new money advice project

MAPS is delighted to announce that EDF Energy Trust has awarded funding for an exciting two year money advice project to start in October 2010.  The project’s beneficiaries will be people living in low-income households with many being financially excluded. 

A dedicated Project Officer, who will be an experienced money adviser, will advise people with money and debt problems via a telephone service.

The project will promote self-help and empowerment to build people’s skills and confidence in managing money and dealing with debts. There will be a focus on fuel poverty and helping to reduce energy debts.

The Project Officer will co-ordinate the project and work with a network of referral partners which include housing associations, local credit unions and other support agencies. The officer’s role will be to promote the project, ensure that people are referred to the project for advice, and raise awareness of the help available from EDF Energy Trust and other utility trust and grant funds.

The project aims to complement the existing financial inclusion support and services available from the project partners. Referrals for  advice will be made for people living in  London, especially the six most deprived inner London boroughs  of Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Islington, Haringey, Lambeth, Waltham Forest, and Lewisham , and Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

Money and debt advice will be provided to around 250 clients each year who will receive help to budget and review their income and expenditure, check welfare benefits and tax credit eligibility, make cost savings, identify priority and non priority debts and agree an action plan to improve their situation.

Clients will also be advised about saving money on energy bills, getting the best energy tariff, and will be signposted to local and national sources of energy advice and information.  Applications for financial help will also be made to EDF Energy Trust and other trust funds.

5 July 2010

allpay and MAPS team up against financial exclusion

allpay and money advice plus services (MAPS) have one big thing in common. They are passionate about financial inclusion.

And that’s why a partnership between the two seemed to make sense to allpay’s Mark Thomas and Gail Biggerstaff from MAPS, an independent money advice charity.

Whether it’s the need for high quality money advice, a heavy reliance on doorstep money lenders or the lack of access to financial products like bank accounts, financial exclusion currently affects 60% of the UK’s low income households in rented accommodation.

MAPS has extensive experience of working with partner organisations, including social housing landlords. Money advice services are provided by telephone to improve money management, help reduce debts, maintain tenancies, and support wider social and financial inclusion objectives.

By offering easy, convenient ways to make payments, allpay has a firm focus on financial inclusion and provides services which appeal to those who are restricted to using cash.

This partnership means that MAPS can now spread the word about its valuable support services amongst allpay’s 750 and growing client base. Alongside this awareness drive, allpay is also looking to develop a prepaid card specifically designed to make payments easier for individuals repaying their creditors.

allpay’s roots are firmly set in financial inclusion. For more than 14 years we have been dedicated to finding ways for bills to be paid conveniently and on time, particularly for those customers that don’t have access to bank accounts and credit. Teaming up with money advice plus services means that we can pool experience and develop new ideas that will ultimately ease the burden of debt,” comments allpay Deputy Managing Director Mark Thomas.

Gail Biggerstaff, MAPS CEO, adds: ‘Working effectively with partners to help them support their customers is at the heart of what we do. We are delighted to have support from allpay to promote the value of money advice more widely to their clients. It’s so important for people to get access to money advice as early as possible to help manage bill payments and prevent the build up of debt longer term.’

3 June 2010

MAPS is a finalist for Institute of Money Advisers (IMA) Performance awards

In May the Chair, Vice Chair and CEO of MAPS attended the IMA conference held this year in Harrogate. This was attended by 250 delegates across the money advice sector, the credit services and debt collection, and other delegates, for example, in financial services, policy roles and regulation of consumer credit.

We were delighted to be a finalist in the IMA Performance Awards category for "Best Partnership". Our entry showcased the money advice service we are providing to our partner Orbit South, part of Orbit Housing Group. We have been working with Laura Barrett, Head of Income and her team since June 2009.

Laura says "We have been delighted with the service MAPS provide. Our residents can access fast, confidential and professional advice on a range of money management and debt issues. The information provided back to us by MAPS enables us to track the success of the referrals that we make. This feedback has enabled us to prove a positive effect on residents' arrears levels and provides solid evidence of the value for money that MAPS offers. This evidence has allowed continued funding in 2010/11 and for us to extend the service to our Orbit East residents in East Anglia."

6 May 2010

A small change...

We have just added the word ‘services’ to our name so in future we will be known as ‘money advice plus services’, or MAPS.

We’ve done this because there are a number of other charities that use the words ‘money advice’ in their names and we wanted to avoid any confusion. The Charity Commission has approved the new name which gives greater clarity. It also reflects the wider range of services we are developing, such as the successful money management workshops that we are running in conjunction with Wandle Housing Association for their residents.

We’ve already made changes to our website and will be refreshing our information materials very soon. In practice the change will make no difference to the day to day running of the service and we remain committed to providing high quality services to benefit our clients and to work positively with all our partner agencies.

5 March 2010

MAP retains Quality Mark for another two years

In February 2010 a full audit of MAP was carried out by an external assessor from The Assessment Network, on behalf of the Legal Services Commission.

We had prepared for the audit and are delighted with the result  as we passed it  successfully and met all seven areas of the required standards. This result means we can retain the use of the Quality Mark for General Help with Casework and Telephone services for another two years and display the Quality Mark logo on our information materials.  

As holders of the Quality Mark we are also members of the Community Legal Service and this gives reassurance to both our clients and the partner organisations we work with that our service is quality assured.  

The seven areas of the standard are;

• Access to the service
• Seamless service
• Running the organisation
• People Management
• Running the service
• Meeting client’s needs
• Commitment to quality

We received recommendations as to where we can improve our service even more and were recognised as having demonstrated good practice in a number of areas.    

15 February 2010

MAP staff team grows to eleven

In January our team has grown in size as we've recruited two money advisers to work on our specialist project to provide money and debt advice support to people who have experienced domestic abuse.

The DAME project (Domestic Abuse, Money and Education) is being delivered with our partner, the national charity Women's Aid, and is funded by the Nationwide Foundation. The project will deliver much needed money and debt advice by telephone and will operate through a referral system from domestic abuse support agencies as well as self referrals from people needing help. The project will raise awareness of the financial issues affecting survivors of domestic abuse and the direct and indirect impact for the client and their family.

We will pilot the project in the South East of England first before rolling out across other areas. We are currently conducting telephone surveys to obtain some baseline information from a sample of domestic abuse support agencies and money advice services.

For more information please contact Jo Downing on 01323 635987 or email jo.downing@moneyadviceplus.com

 

27 October 2009

MAP awarded funding from Nationwide Foundation Investor Programme

We are delighted to announce that MAP has been awarded funding from the Nationwide Foundation Investor Programme to deliver a money and debt service by phone to survivors of domestic abuse.

The DAME (Domestic Abuse, Money and Education) project with deliver advice services over a three year period. We will be working with our partner, the national charity Women's Aid, to ensure the project supports survivors in domestic abuse situations who are struggling to deal with money and debt problems. There will be more details about the project shortly, but meanwhile here is a link to the news release from the Nationwide Foundation about all eight projects that it is funding.

NEWS RELEASE

 

 

29 September 2009

 

Money advisers now able to support Debt Relief Order applications

MAP's money advisers have been approved as intermediaries by Advice UK. This means they can give more help to people who are struggling to repay their debts by helping them to apply to the Insolvency Service for a Debt Relief Order (DRO).

Debt Relief Orders were introduced in April 2009 are are a form of insolvency designed to help people with relatively low debts, little surplus income and few valuable assets - and who have no realistic chance of paying off their debts within a reasonable time.

We believe this will be especially useful to residents claiming welfare benefits and living in social housing as a route out of debt. We anticipate that arrangements for the repayment of rent arrears would be maintained as with bankruptcy proceedings.

A DRO, if successful, will last for 12 months:

• during which, any creditor named on the order cannot take any action to recover their money unless they have the court's position, and
• after which, the individual will be freed of the debts included in the order (unless their circumstances have significantly improved)

DROs don't involve the courts, and are run by the Insolvency Service (insolvency.gov.uk) in partnership with debt advisers who act as "approved intermediaries". A DRO may be appropriate if people can meet the following conditions:

• They must be unable to pay their debts
• They must not owe more than £15,000
• The total value of their assets must not exceed £300 - this includes any contributions to a personal pension fund although excludes a car worth less than £1,000
• Their disposable income (after tax, national insurance contributions and normal household expenses) must not exceed £50 per month
• They must live in England or Wales - or have lived/carried out business in England or Wales at some time in the last 3 years
• They must not have been subject to another Debt Relief Order in the previous 6 years
• They must not be involved in another formal insolvency procedure at the time they apply

Some debts cannot be included in a DRO for example:

• Magistrates' court fines
• Student loans, and
• Secured debts (debt secured against property)

There are also some restrictions and these are similar to those faced by a person declared bankrupt, For example, it may not be possible to obtain credit of £500 or more without declaring that you are subject to a DRO.

We are now supporting people to apply for DROs where appropriate. If you would like to find out more about how we can help your residents or customers please contact us at info@moneyadviceplus.com

 

 

17 August 2009

Alan is the new Chair of money advice plus

In July 2009 Jill Stevens retired from her role as the Chair of money advice plus. Jill has been a very capable and highly effective chair, having steered the charity (previously known as Direct Debt Line) through a period of considerable change and development as it sought to expand its work with low-income households. We wish Jill every success for the future.

We are very pleased to welcome Alan Jarvis to his role as the charity's new chair. Alan was previously the Vice Chair and has been integral to the charity's development as well, having been involved since 2004 as a consultant, an employee and more recently as a trustee and Vice Chair.

Alan has a broad background in consumer protection and he managed a money advice service for a local authority for many years. Alan was a founder member of the Money Advice Association (now the Institute of Money Advisers - IMA) in the mid 1980's, is a past chair, and remains an honorary fellow. In 1995 Alan was appointed Director of the Money Advice Trust, a strategic advice service partnership, leaving in 2003 to work independently as a consultant in the voluntary, statutory and commercial sectors. Alan has over 25 years experience of advice service development, and has worked extensively with money advice organisations. He is also a non-executive director of the Bankside Gallery, in London.

Alan is looking forward to his new role and says "These are very difficult times for many families and individuals. It is so important that money advice plus is able to provide them with free support and advice, and to work in partnership with housing and service providers".

 

2nd July 2009

money advice plus - we’ve had a makeover

In May 2009 we took a decision to rename our charity money advice plus.

This wasn’t an easy decision because the Direct Debt Line name had served us well for nearly 15 years. But it was important to listen to staff, clients, our current and potential contract partners and others. Here’s what they said about the DDL brand:

· Too narrow a focus on debt
· Could be confused with fee-charging debt management/credit companies
· Other organisations have similar names
· Offputting to clients

We knew these were very good reasons to change. So we came up with a simple name that we believe more closely describes what we offer and one which better reflects our current advice services and future development plans.

Our Chair, Jill Stevens says “We chose this name (money advice plus) after talking to our staff, clients, contract partners, funders and stakeholders. We feel that the new name makes it clearer that we are not just concerned with helping people relieve immediate debt, but also want to help them guard against getting into financial difficulty in the future.

Money advice is often about much more than debt – it’s about education, financial inclusion, information and more. By providing free-to-the-consumer money advice we are involved in all these areas of work and we think our new name reflects this.”

We have worked with Firebrand, a local design company, to come up with a fresh and bright new identity. We are delighted with our new logo and brand image and we hope you like it too.

Our thanks go to Michael Dale at Firebrand and to Mark Thomas at allpay whose print and design team have produced our new marketing materials in time for the launch of our new brand later in July.

8th April 2009

DDL welcomes Gail Biggerstaff as the charity’s new CEO. Gail was previously Group Head of Neighbourhood Investment at London & Quadrant Group, and brings 27 years of experience working in the social housing sector in a variety of roles.