MPs Slam Government Debt Management Strategy

Fri, 09 Apr 2010

The government’s debt management programme, designed to help people in debt, has been branded a "complete failure" by a group of MPs.

A damning report by the Public Accounts Committee slammed the management of the Government's over-indebtedness strategy, claiming that 51 different projects had been left uncoordinated and with no-one in charge since the strategy was launched in 2004.

It said 10 per cent of adults are currently struggling with debts, with the UK population's total personal debt reaching almost £1.5 trillion.

In addition, the committee claimed that for the first time the demand for debt advice was outstripping the level of financial support available and is expected to continue to grow as Britain gradually recovers from the economic crisis.

Committee chairman, Edward Leigh MP, said: "In 2004, the government launched a strategy aimed at improving the support to, and reducing the number of, people who struggle with unmanageable debt ."

"No one is in charge of the strategy; groups intended to oversee it have not met, and there has been no reporting on its progress since 2007."

"The strategy has not been evaluated to assess whether the policy goals have been achieved and the department does not know how effective the interventions making it up have been."

However, the committee’s report praised the face-to-face debt advice service set up by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and run by third party groups such as the charity Citizens Advice .

It described the project as a gleam of light, adding that the service "is providing a very valuable service to consumers who find that they can no longer manage their debts ".
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