Trainee debt advisers - casualties of the MaPS procurement exercise?

Many people involved in debt advice are now questioning the ability of MaPS to develop a coherent strategy for its provision.  The ongoing situation with the MaPS funded trainee debt advisers is a good example of their poor planning and decision making.  

In 2020/21, MaPS received additional funding of £34.8 8 million for debt services to meet expected needs arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.   The additional funding was from a combination of government funds, reallocated MaPS budget, and the levy on the financial services industry.  MaPS explained that:

 “a tranche of the funding would be used to increase the capacity of high-quality, free-to-customer debt advice by recruiting and training 550 additional debt advisers. Funding was allocated to incumbent suppliers and following an open market process to a broader set of providers in the debt sector.”

Debt advice organisations have, for many years, struggled to recruit and retain staff.  A very high proportion, probably the majority, of the additional debt advisers, were completely new to debt advice.

Many of the new recruits were at an early stage of their careers.  Many were young people who had lost their previous employment due to lockdown or were on furlough.  One trainee told us that that they felt ‘really positive’ at the start of their employment and were led to believe that when they completed their training, they would   move into long term debt advice jobs – they thought that they were starting their careers. 

The trainees were recruited on 12-month contracts, but these were subsequently extended.  However, because of the recommissioning exercise, many of these trainees now only expect to continue in employment until the end of March 2022. 

The actual activities carried out by the trainees varied across the country, with some trainees focused on telephone / online advice and some trainees delivering some face-to-face advice.

Our conversations with debt advice agencies suggest that many of these trainees have since resigned from their role and moved into other types of employment as the economy has re-opened.  One trainee debt adviser we interviewed pointed out that trainees had seen the pressurised working conditions of the staff delivering MaPS contract and this had discouraged them from continuing their training. 

We also have anecdotal evidence that the quality and quantity of the training provided varied enormously across the country, with some trainees receiving excellent support and training from highly motivated and skilled staff whereas other organisations struggled to provide adequate support.

There is a clear disconnect between recruiting and training 550 new people in 2020, training them to deliver advice in MaPS funded organisations and then issuing a tender the following year, for contracts that will substantially reduce the number of suppliers. 

The recruitment of these new people, most of whom will not be working on MaPS contracts after 31st March 2022, is indicative of MaPS’ difficulties with planning and lack of service delivery experience.

The issue suggests fundamental problems with MaPS’ planning and commissioning process. It seems that at much the same time as MaPS was preparing for the current commissioning exercise, they extended the funding for the new recruits even though that same commissioning exercise is likely to make those same people redundant. 

The funding of the trainee debt advisers has not only wasted money but has arguably damaged the trainees’ career prospects. Many trainees were under 30, with only a few years of work experience.  MaPS has in effect, wasted their time. We asked several trainees for their thoughts on the situation - they were all annoyed, upset and frustrated that they would probably be out of work from March – having trained and worked for at least 18 months for jobs that will now not be available to them. 

The trainees, like the other MaPS funded staff in local offices, may have rights under TUPE.  However, given the substantial reductions in face-to-face advice there will, regardless of TUPE, be significant redundancies.  The staff recruited in summer 2020 are obviously less likely to survive a redundancy selection process than their more experienced colleagues.

The whole situation is consistent with the problems identified in the recent Departmental Review of MaPS.  The Review noted that the MaPS Board composition:

“lacks representation from any form of end user voice. It boasts a roster of highly capable and experienced individuals who understand about business leadership… what it lacks is anyone with any recent experience of frontline delivery of the services MaPS exists to provide.” 

A board with experience of frontline service delivery, may not have tried to increase capacity at a time when demand for debt advice was reduced due to increased support for people during the pandemic.  This included changes in debt collection practices, mortgage payment holidays and the eviction ban.

It may be the case that the recruitment of the trainees was not so much about service provision but about reducing an underspend. As the Departmental Review noted:

“there have been concerns regarding MaPS ability to budget and plan effectively and to deliver its services to meet consumer need.” 

In fact, MaPS finished the last year with an underspend of £35.3 million against a budget of £175.7 million. Debt advice agencies report that the need for debt advice is now at least as high as pre-pandemic levels and is likely to rise further due to increases in food and fuel prices and the ending of the Universal Credit uplift. 

It is now that MaPs need to be preserving capacity and local provision but they have, apparently due to poor planning, wasted the resources.  Their procurement exercise is also leading to  the winding down of community based services just as demand is rising.