Wednesday 10 April 2019
In 2017 the Money Advice Service (MAS) - now part of the Money and Pensions Service - brought together a consortium of 14 advice and guidance organisations from across the UK to consider how to raise the quality of money guidance through practitioners.
There are many thousands of practitioners delivering money guidance in the non-regulated space in one form or another. They range from volunteers, community workers youth practitioners and housing officers who might only be doing it for a fraction of their time, to advisors who do it full time - and everyone in between.
While some of the people they serve are specifically seeking money guidance, we know that many are not. They may be seeking advice on a specific life event, be vulnerable or have complex needs. Money guidance will often form just part of a wider but interconnected and holistic service.
Currently, there is no common view of what good money guidance looks like, many practitioners may not be aware of regulatory boundaries and there are very few opportunities for practitioners to access evidence about how to most effectively improve the money skills of the people they serve.
Having considered the recommendations from the consortium, in 2018 MAS developed a strategy and programme of work which aims to raise the status and profile of financial capability support and the quality and consistency of its delivery.
The first stage of the programme was to design a competency framework which aims to cover different levels and types of money guidance. As well as showing where regulated boundaries are and the technical knowledge needed, it very much includes some of the softer skills needed in order to do that part of the job well.
They are now seeking feedback from as many people as possible across the UK through an online survey, events and interviews. See the framework and offer feedbackopens in new window on the Pye Tait website.