Government launches free money advice service
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The government is launching its free Moneymadeclear service today which provides free financial advice across the country.
The service includes a helpline, a website, and face-to-face advice delivered through firms such as the Citizens Advice Bureau and Age Concern.
The cost of the service will be funded by a levy on the financial sector and funds recovered from dormant bank accounts, though the government will pay some of the costs in the first year.
Consumers will be able to get free advice on financial problems, financial planning, or advice on their rights should they feel they are not be treated fairly.
The government has been trialling the service in the North-East and North-West since last April, which the government says has helped 500,000 consumer so far, including 23,000 who received face-to-face assistance.
It is expected to help one million consumers in the next year.
Alistair Darling, the chancellor, says: “Moneymadeclear is free, impartial advice for all, whether you are unsure about the small print in a mortgage form; want advice about opening a savings account for your children or grand-children or you want some help dealing with repayments before they get out of hand.”
Readers' comments (3)
James | 11 Mar 2010 4:10 pm
The Government giving advice on Money?
This is a joke, right? Considering they've lumbered a generation or more with huge amounts of debt giving free money advice is a kick in the teeth.
Remember the maxim, to solve a problem you need a higher level of inteligence that created the problem.
Nuff said really......
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Anonymous | 11 Mar 2010 4:44 pm
Unless the Government put a huge amount of money into the CAB to pay for new advisory staff recruitment, training and salaries, I cannot see how this service will be any more than a FSA web site with downloadable leaflets. I did some work for the CAB a few years ago and at that time they had long waiting lists for people to see their debt advisors so how can the CAB magically give all this face to face advice? According to the CAB's web site (which still only talks about the pilot), there have been 13 CAB offices in the North East involved in the pilot. If they saw the 23,000 people mentioned above that means each CAB dealt with an average of 1,769 people during the pilot or 147 per month. How could they suddenly find the resource for that? Is this possibly some government manipualtion of figures by classifying people who were already seeking debt and financial advice from the CAB as being helped by the new Moneymadelear service?
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Anonymous | 12 Mar 2010 2:32 pm
The "manipulation" is not by the FSA or Govt but more to do with how CAB advisers, at the behest of CAB head office, record enquires. Almost all people who enter a CAB will mention some sort of money related issue eg you go into to get advice about the heel that came off your shoe a day after you bought it and the shop won't give a refund. If you said you bought the shoe on credit card that would be logged as both a consumer enquiry and a "money made clear"enquiry. The average person who seeks advice has 10 or so queries logged and in debt cases every debt "counts" When you see stats that say that CABx dealt with 6m enquiries last year as a rough rule of thumb divide that by 10 to get the real number of people seen.
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