Plymouth Citizens Advice’s 'Money Active'

• Description of the programme
• The study
• Key findings
• Points to consider
• Full report

Description of the programme

The Money Active programme aimed to deliver more sustainable outcomes for debt advice clients by providing them with financial capability training. It was developed and delivered by Plymouth Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) in 2009. More specifically the programme aimed to:

• improve clients’ financial capability by increasing their knowledge, skills and confidence to manage their money more effectively and take responsibility for personal financial decisions;
• decrease repeat appointments with the bureau for further advice; and
• compare the effectiveness of one-to-one versus group sessions for improving clients’ financial situations, and assess the best method of improving capability without detracting from debt advice delivery.

Clients who approached Plymouth CAB for debt advice were assessed by advisors and referred to Money Active (either group workshops or one-to-one advice sessions) if they were thought to need further help with money management. The group workshops covered budgeting, borrowing and saving, dealing with debts and where to go to for help.

101 service users were referred to a Money Active session over the evaluation period; 90% attended a group workshop and the remaining 10% attended one-to-one training.

Initial funding for the project was provided by RBS Innovate, a programme run by RBS, through Toynbee Hall, which helped organisations to launch financial inclusion initiatives at a local level.

The study

Toynbee Hall undertook an evaluation of the programme. The evaluation involved post-programme questionnaires completed by all workshop participants immediately after the session (69 people) and follow-up interviews conducted with 18 of those participants several weeks after their attendance at the workshop. No comparison group was used.

Key findings

The evaluation (which involved post-programme questionnaires with workshop participants, a small-scale follow-up interviews several weeks later, and analysis of the programme data) found positive impacts in relation to the following outcomes:

Financial behaviour:

• When asked directly after the session about changes they intended to make to their financial behaviour, around half (47%) of participants said they would make changes in relation to debt and bills, 29% cited changes around budgeting behaviour, and 24% said they would make changes in another area.
• When asked directly after the session what changes they were planning to make in relation to managing their money, of six options the most popular response was to ‘set up a budget to help you manage your money’, followed by ‘seek debt advice’.
• Participants were also asked what they were planning to do about their accounts and service providers. Given a further range of options, the most popular option was that they would ‘talk to a local credit union’ followed by ‘get a better deal with fuel supplier’.
• Of those 18 participants who were followed up, when asked what positive steps they had taken since attending the workshop around six in ten (57%) stated they had started to settle their existing debts and a quarter (23%) had set up and were following a budget.

Financial capability (mindset):

• All 18 participants who took part in the follow-up interviews said they felt their attitude towards money had changed since attending the Money Active workshop, and 83% reported that their attitude towards budgeting had changed.

Financial capability (ability):

• All 18 participants who took part in the follow-up interviews were able to give an example of an affordable source of credit, and 79% of respondents were able to give an example of a priority bill.

Points to consider

Plymouth CAB found that, if a client took part in a Money Active session, any subsequent debt advice casework took a third of the time that it took for clients who had not been involved in Money Active.

Methodological limitations:

Care must be taken when interpreting the findings due to the small sample sizes involved at the follow-up interview stage, the lack of a comparison group, and the fact that intention to undertake financial behaviour does not always translate into action.

Full report

Link to the full report