A huge relief, but MaPS must now be changed for good.

The Money and Pensions Service (‘MaPS’) has finally relented, and yesterday announced that it would put in place new grants for community based debt advice services (at the same level of funding to the current year) from 1st April. These grant agreements will run for 10 months whilst a consultation takes place concerning future arrangements. The MaPS statement promises that they will “fund regional services at £30 million per annum until we conclude our work with the sector to identify the best approach and level of funding required to deliver local services.”

This is a tremendous success for our campaign, which has averted a 50% cut to community based debt advice services. We would like to place on record our thanks to Emma Hardy MP who has led on this issue in Parliament, as well to all other MPs who have been lobbying on our behalf. We also particularly thank the Unite Debt Advice Network as well as other organisations which supported our campaign. However, most of all, we thank the debt advisers from up and down the country who took action themselves, to sign our Open Letters to the Economic Secretary and who lobbied MaPS as well as their MPs.

A huge relief

The eleventh hour decision by MaPS will come as a huge relief to many advisers, who were facing redundancy on 1st April. It will mean that community based services, which predominantly provide casework, will still be available as the cost of living crisis hits. For many people those services will prove to be a lifeline in the coming months. But the aversion of £14 million of cuts will not be sufficient for these services to meet demand. In real terms, the budget of £30 million still represents a cut. And capacity on the ground has been decimated as the threat of redundancy combined with long-standing pressures of work under MaPS contracts led to many debt advisers leaving their roles. Some have vowed never to work under a MaPS contract again. Replacing this loss of advisers, many of whom had many years’ experience, will take much longer than 10 months.

MaPS must now be changed for good. The MaPS’ procurement process was completely misconceived, and should still be halted. It’s decision to proceed with the procurement of the national and DRO hub lots, albeit with less funding for these than originally planned, once again treats the sector with utter disdain. The Target Operating Model which MaPS is still pursuing does not have the support of the sector. Although it will lead to greater numbers of people accessing services via digital and call centre operations, the complexity of cases will inevitably mean that demand for casework will also rise. There is a need to balance digital and call centre expansion with the expansion of regional services. To achieve that requires a considered approach to the allocations of funding between national and regional services.

Yet, there is no evidence of any thinking from MaPS which supports its current allocations. Their Equality Impact Assessments appear to have had no bearing on the proposed funding allocations. Neither did MaPS bother to consult with debt advisers or wider stakeholders about them. Evidence regarding the impact of the pandemic on services (which MaPS requested when the procurement exercise was already in train) has not even been published. Similarly, although MaPS asked services why they had not bid for the regional contracts as long ago as November, their response to our Freedom of Information request indicates that they have not yet bothered to summarise those responses for Senior Management to consider.

A failure to consult

The culture at MaPS is at fault. It does not consult effectively, and thinks that it knows better than those whose daily job is providing advice. Even after finally announcing that the discredited Debt Advice Peer Assessment (‘DAPA’) regime is to end on 31st March, it does not seem to know how to engage openly and transparently in discussion with advisers concerning its replacement. Despite a great many advisers wanting to feed into the process, MaPS has run only a limited number of sessions with strictly limited places. We have heard how some organisations have ‘cherry picked’ attendees and excluded those with views which MaPS does not want to hear. Yet even this strategy has failed. There is no hiding from DAPA’s disasters, such is the widespread nature of the anger towards it.

What is needed?

Although breathing a huge sigh of relief, advisers are still in the dark in several key respects and MaPS is not fit for purpose.

Firstly, advisers do not know the nature of the grant agreements that will be put in place on 1st April. We call on MaPS to publish the terms of these grant agreements immediately. Under no circumstances will a return to volume targets be acceptable. There must also be absolute clarity concerning the quality assurance framework that is to be used. Pending further consultation concerning DAPA’s replacement, the interim grant agreements must reduce the bureaucracy of quality assurance, and empower local units to use more of their own effective coaching and checking procedures via technical supervisors in house. Audit processes should be used as a coaching tool not a mechanism to condemn.

Secondly, the draft arrangements for future consultation concerning community based services must be published, and the final arrangements shaped by debt advisers and wider stakeholders, including local authorities and housing associations. We have no confidence that MaPS will consult properly, or that it even knows what an effective consultation process looks like. We therefore seek the publication of the list of stakeholders who will be consulted; details of how the consultation will be run (who will lead it; how it will be resourced; how it proposes to engage front-line advisers; when interim reports and draft thinking will be published for comment etc.) together with its overall time-frame. We have serious doubts that the consultation which is now required can be delivered (properly) by MaPS within a 10 month time-frame.

Thirdly, we need to be sure that MaPS has learnt lessons from this debacle. An internal review of the recent commissioning exercise should be conducted, with evidence sought from agencies concerning the impacts that this ill-fated adventure has had on their services and staff. Key staff at MaPS should be held responsible for the damage that has been done to provision, as well as to the morale and, in some cases, the health, of people working in debt advice.

Finally, we demand that MaPS develop, in consultation with trade unions including the Unite Debt Advice Network, a properly costed workforce strategy for the sector for the next five years. This will need to focus on the recruitment and retention crisis which MaPS has itself created.