Demand For Debt Advice Rising

Thu, 11 Jun 2009

More and more Britons are seeking advice over debt, according to new figures from the Citizens Advice Bureau .

The debt advice charity has revealed that the amount of enquiries it received between April 2008 and March 2009 rose by 11 per cent on the previous 12 months, with some 1.93 million people being advised by the CAB on how to deal with their debt problems .

Citizens Advice chief executive David Harker said: "These new figures show the human impact of the recession as more people are coming to the Citizens' Advice service for help."

"In particular we are seeing an enormous rise in the number of people turning to us for help because they have lost their job, or they are struggling with debts or keeping up with their mortgages ."

He added: "A recent funding boost has enabled us to see more clients, and train more advisers but we are expecting to see many more people struggling with severe debt and related problems as the recession continues to take its toll."

According to the organisation, the most common reasons people gave for getting into debt were having a low income, over-spending and illness, while irresponsible lending, poor financial knowledge and the rise in the cost of living, were also cited as reasons for their debt situation.

The charity also revealed it would take 93 years for their average client to pay off their debts at a rate they could afford.

The CAB recently found that that the average Briton owes £16,971 in non-mortgage debt .
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