Tuesday 15 October 2013

Tackling the pay day lenders

Bethan Jenkins explains why she is introducing legislation in the Senedd tomorrow to help people facing bad debt...

It was around a year ago that I first wrote to Bridgend County Borough Council, asking it to block access to payday loan sites from its public library computers. I was told that this was nigh-on impossible to achieve – which was not encouraging, particularly since other local authorities such as Dundee have already done it.
Meanwhile, the present economic situation continues to push people on low incomes into debt they cannot afford from lenders who demand sky-high rates and use harassing methods to get their money back.

I become more and more concerned every time I hear of a constituent who has been through this process – especially when the reasons for going to a payday lender is to borrow for precious things, like children’s Christmas presents.

The extent of these problems is shown by the number of people with financial difficulties who are seeking help from Citizens Advice Cymru. Of those who approached it between April 2012 and March this year, 84 per cent had financial capability issues. Of these, 74 per cent continue to receive support.

How can people work and spend their income in the local economy if they are doomed to spend years repaying a company whose profits are most likely off-shored? Money management is likely to become a greater issue for those out of work as well, with the advent of Universal Credit and its switch to monthly payments. These will require a culture change for generations used to managing finances on a weekly basis.

Legislation I am proposing on the floor of the Senedd tomorrow will give people the tools to turn their lives around. Aimed at helping them to make more informed choices about their finances, my Financial Education and Inclusion Bill is divided into two areas:

  • Promotion of financial education to help future generations manage their money.
  • Providing greater powers for local authorities to promote financial inclusion – to help people with their current debt problems.

At the heart of the Bill is a statutory duty placed on local authorities to promote financial inclusion. Statutory duties have come in for a fair bit of criticism in recent times. It has been said that they achieve little and are too open to abuse. But you can argue that about pretty much any poorly written piece of legislation or regulation. Provided we have in place the means to measure outcomes, I believe this could encourage local authorities to think outside the box at a time when finances threaten successful service delivery.

Properly implemented, the proposals in the Bill will produce a greater co-ordination of services resulting in:

  •  One-stop internet shops that can provide visitors with the help they need – the Bill prevents local authorities from charging for internet access.
  • Promotion of the Money Advice Service’s excellent tools and resources.
  • Local authorities collaborating to produce an awareness campaign for Money Made Clear and for Welsh credit unions.

The Bill’s proposals have been welcomed by a range of organisations, including Community Housing Cymru, Swansea Council, Consumer Futures, Action for Children, Age Cymru, and Shelter Cymru. Individuals who are supporting the Bill include the Welsh Financial Inclusion Champion, and Martin Lewis, creator of MoneySavingExpert, who has run a long and high profile campaign to have financial education included in the curriculum in England.

It is encouraging that the Welsh Government has already taken steps in this area, particularly in financial education. However, poverty Minister Jeff Cuthbert recently told the Western Mail that 'more needs to be done' on combatting payday lenders, while Education Minister Huw Lewis recently told me in the Senedd that there was 'room for improvement' in financial education.

If my colleagues give me leave to take my Financial Education and Inclusion Bill forward I am sure we will be able to improve its proposals. AMs from all four parties have spoken with great concern on this issue. If we work together I believe we can produce legislation that will bring significant improvements in people’s lives. Indeed, the Bill is a great example of what the Assembly was created to do – to move decision making closer to the people it affects and, in this instance, giving them a better life away from bad debt.
 

Bethan Jenkins AM 

You can read the relevant press release on CHC's website

Monday 14 October 2013

A day in the life of Moneyline Cymru



I’m afraid I am going to start with the C word. It is October, Christmas is fast approaching and Moneyline customers are getting ready for it. Quarterly savings account statements have just been sent out, so the Moneyline office is seeing a stream of customers coming in to withdraw their savings with most looking forward to starting their Christmas shopping.

People are also coming in to ask about how to get a loan. A loan is only approved after checking a customer’s identification and income & expenditure to see if a loan is affordable. It then takes 3-4 days for the money to reach their bank account. However, Moneyline doesn’t just offer loans and savings. When looking at an application, the loan officers also assess whether a Money Adviser could help. For example, they can see if benefits are not being paid that a customer may be entitled to, if they would be eligible for utility discount schemes or if they are making payments to creditors and have debts. For these and many other reasons, customers are referred to the in house Your Benefits Are Changing Money Adviser for free and independent money advice. This helps customers in so many ways.

One customer rang today to say thank you because a loan officer  spotted that she would be eligible for a discount on her water bill and that she wasn’t receiving Tax Credits. After talking to the Money Adviser it was confirmed that she was eligible and she was helped to apply.  She is now £60 per week better off by claiming Tax Credits, is saving on her water bills through Welsh Water Assist and will receive £135 via the Warm Home Discount in the New Year. This has made a massive difference to her and, through coming in for a loan, she has actually found herself financially better off.

Moneyline Cwmbran has been nominated for a ‘Torfaen’s Most Recommended’ award and customers are completing voting forms with lovely comments such as ‘friendly staff'; ‘non judgemental'; ‘love that you can get money advice as well’; ‘ you really help people’.

Our office is in the middle of the town centre, so customers can easily pop in to ask questions or just say hello, and this certainly adds to the good relationships we have with customers. Today one customer popped in to introduce us to her new baby – cue oohing and ahhing all round in an office of mums.
As the Money Adviser, my day today has included appointments for debt advice, a telephone enquiry for a benefit check, processing applications for Welsh Water Assist and Customer Assistance Fund, an application for Discretionary Housing Payment  for someone affected by the 'bedroom tax', talking to customers about Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment, and searching for grants (it’s amazing how excited I got at seeing ‘army pension’ on an income sheet at the thought of the grant options I could look into for this particular client). And, on a personal level, thinking about how unprepared I am for the C word compared to our customers.

Your Benefits Are Changing is a Community Housing Cymru project and is funded by the Big Lottery.

Kath Hopkins
Money Adviser

Friday 11 October 2013

Innovate, collaborate or die


The Young Foundation have been in Llandrindod Wells at Community Housing Cymru's One Big Housing UnConference. Whilst we are only part way through the 2 day event, there are already some interesting, exciting and rather worrying topics being debated (or not). Tony Colville, Senior Associate at the Young Foundation and our current lead in Wales, presents his thoughts so far.

It’s fair to say that the last 6 months of the Young Foundation’s exploration of the work carried out by housing associations in Wales has only filled us with hope, excitement and a desire to show our English partners how innovative you can be if you just think differently!

Yesterday was the first opportunity we had to speak with, hear from and engage with a broader range of housing associations and issues from across the sector. Along with my two colleagues, I’ve held some great conversations around the challenges of affordable and accessible community credit, the scaling up of time-credit schemes (see Spice for more information), and how you make best use of an umbrella organisation like Community Housing Cymru to collectively challenge the policies of Westminster that simply don’t work for rural communities here in Wales. I’ve had 7 organisations instantly book in follow up meetings to turn these conversations into ideas we can act on. But for every great conversation, I’ve had either an equally bad conversation or a conversation where the desire to challenge or push for innovation was simply non-existent. This is something we should all be concerned about.

The most frustrating parts of the day for me have been occasions in the discussion rooms where statements made or questions asked have received either flat responses or no response at all. I know there are innovative people at this event with ideas, expertise and passion. I have heard and seen first-hand some of the great ideas being developed. So why so little push for innovation, collaboration or challenge throughout today? Are we just being over-polite and not wanting to talk about the elephant in the room or is there a much bigger problem on the horizon?

Here are three big issues and my thoughts on how we ALL address them:

Challenge: How many statements have you heard today that you don’t agree with? How many questions have been asked that you think are just totally missing the point? Speak up, put your ideas and challenges out there. Through challenge we can start to innovate and build stronger alliances on issues we are passionate about. Use your umbrella body!

Personality: I’ve come across some fantastic personalities in my time here in Wales and the majority of them in the housing sector! If we are going to face a tough ride in the next few years then bring those personalities to the forefront of what you do and how you present it. Bring some energy to what you are doing and provoke, invite and engage us to agree, disagree and collaborate on the answers. I personally want to see more of the great private 1 to 1 conversations I’ve been having with you all shared in a bigger audience (you know who you are!)

Collaborate: The time of big building programmes is over. The time of large funds for social programmes is over. The time of not collaborating and working in silos is over. Start talking about your passions, your shared visions, your resource gaps, the things you have done that have worked, common geographies etc. and turn that talking into genuine collaboration. It shouldn’t be about competing for funding – it should be about maximising the resources, connections and expertise for the benefit of all your residents and communities.

The housing sector is in for a big fight over the next few years and it is inevitable that the landscape in 5 years’ time will be very different. Some of us won’t be here. Now is the opportunity to raise your voice, challenge yourself and challenge others. Innovate, collaborate or start getting ready to fail.

Tony Colville
Senior Associate, The Young Foundation


Wednesday 9 October 2013

Living Longer, Ageing Well?

The fact that we have an ageing population has been well established and is rightly something we should be celebrating and embracing fully. The often uneasy elephant in the room is the simple truth that services aren’t geared up to serve an ageing population in the same way as they do at the moment. 

Information is readily available which reflects the increasing life expectancies people can expect to experience in the coming decades and beyond. Relating to Healthy Life Expectancy, the Office for National Statistics reports that boys born in Wales between 2008 and 2010, who are expected to live to the age of 77.5, are estimated to spend 63 years in good health. Similarly, girls born in Wales between 2008 and 2012 can expect to live 63 of their estimated 81.7 years of life in good health. So this should make up a key part of our thinking now as well as considering the impacts on future generations living well in to their 80s and 90s.
We’re left with a situation whereby an increasing amount of people will require care services of some sort. It is vital that we seize the opportunity (as many are already doing) to really listen to older people and work collaboratively to provide services that can serve a number of their central needs from health and housing to education and transport.
Working with this holistic mentality to provision will go some way towards creating the opportunity for the latter years of a person’s lifetime to be some of the most rewarding, fulfilling and enriching.  


Matt Kennedy
Policy Officer: Care, Support and Community Health
CHC Group

Tuesday 1 October 2013

Linc participates in new Welsh Housing Finance Grant Scheme

Bronte House on Newport Road and Gwaun Helyg, Ebbw Vale are anticipated to be the first affordable housing projects to start on site and to be funded under the Welsh Government’s innovative Welsh Housing Finance Grant Scheme.


Bronte House, Newport Road, Cardiff CF24 1DJ

Linc acquired the Bronte site on the open market in May 2012 and proceeded to demolish the rather old and tired buildings and secure planning consent for a new affordable housing scheme in an area of very high demand. Bronte House will consist of 38 apartments with a mix of 16 one bed and 22 two bed units. The apartments will be targeted at people currently living in housing association and local authority accommodation who wish to downsize from accommodation that might now be too large for their needs. Rents will be set at intermediate rent levels. The total capital cost of the Bronte House scheme is £4.0 million. The contribution from the Welsh Housing Finance Grant is agreed at just under £1.0 million. The scheme will be developed to code level 3+ and the apartments will benefit from the latest efficient gas boilers which will result in very low running costs for tenants.




The project is ready to start on site with a contractor approved by the Linc Board. The Welsh Government has confirmed formal stage 3 approval and Linc has signed up for the collective private finance product. The Welsh Government has advised Linc that their revenue grant is likely to be available in November but is not yet in a position to confirm this. When confirmation is received, Linc will enter into a formal contract with the building contractor. Based on a December 2013 start on site, the scheme will be available for letting in the spring of 2015.



Gwaun Helyg, Ebbw Vale

Linc acquired this site from Corus in 2009. The Welsh Housing Finance Grant will fund the first phase of a larger planned affordable housing scheme. This first phase will consist of 13 family houses with a mix of 8 two bed and 5 three bed properties. The properties are to be let at social housing benchmark rents in partnership with Blaenau Gwent Council. The total capital cost of the Gwaun Helyg scheme is £2.0 million. The contribution from the Welsh Housing Finance Grant is agreed at £1.14 million. The scheme will be developed to code level 3+ and the properties will again benefit from the latest efficient gas boilers. The project is ready to start on site with a contractor approved by the Linc Board. The Welsh Government has confirmed formal stage 3 approval and Linc has signed up for the collective private finance product. Again, the Welsh Government has advised Linc that their revenue grant is likely to be available in November.




Did you attend the launch of the Welsh Housing Finance Grant last week? Do you have any thoughts on the new scheme?

Trevor Saunders
Executive Director, Linc Homes