Debt Handbook

Citizens Advice is pleased to publish this third edition of the Debt Handbook for Advisers in Northern Ireland, and is grateful to the Ulster Bank for the financial support which has made this edition possible.

Citizens Advice has been at the leading edge of money advice provision in Northern Ireland since 1990, when we published the first edition of A Debt Handbook for Advisers, and in 1996 placing its money advice training within an externally accredited framework via the Open College Network. At the time this was the first development of its kind in the UK advice sector, and the first delivery of money advice training within an accredited framework. The computerisation of the CAB network in Northern Ireland in the late 1990’s also permitted the installation of standardised money advice software, PG Debt, in all CAB offices.

In 2001 Citizens Advice published the Would you Credit It report, an analysis of the organisation’s debt caseload. This attracted considerable interest, and the then DETI Minister in the Assembly , Sir Reg Empey, was favourably disposed to including debt and money advice as a strand in the emerging Consumer Strategy for Northern Ireland which his Department was engaged in bringing forward.

In 2003 materials from the Money Talks project entered the Northern Ireland GCSE curriculum, the first initiative of its kind in the UK. This project won a Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) Link award for innovation and best practice in October 2004, and the materials which are widely used in schools, can be downloaded from our website.

In March 2006, following a pilot project, DETI awarded a 2 year contract to Citizens Advice for the provision of a money advice service across Northern Ireland. This tender supports 16 advisers across 15 posts including advisers outside Citizens Advice in Housing Rights and Omagh Independent Advice Services, and has provided the first reliable funding from Government in Northern Ireland for money advice and the costs of supporting its delivery. DETI subsequently awarded a further contract to Citizens Advice from April 2008 to March 2011.

Citizens Advice takes no financial interest in the debt of its clients, providing a service which is free at the point of use, and it is clear that the consumers of financial services in Northern Ireland need the impartial, independent, and confidential service which we provide. Debt is now recognised as a major problem, and measures to deal with it have taken almost 20 years to emerge.

Citizens Advice looks forward to continuing to work with Government, and we believe that the Northern Ireland Assembly could now usefully consider an integrated strategy on debt which would begin in the schools, and which would equip the public to deal with financial issues. The finance industry in Northern Ireland has much to contribute to such a strategy, and hopefully will work with us to bring such a strategy to fruition.