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Subject: Face to Face Debt Advice Project. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) General Questions
Q1. What have the Treasury announced so far? Lead Partner Role Questions
Q8.
What would the lead partner’s main role be? General Questions Q1. What have the Treasury announced so far? The 2 December 2004 Pre-Budget Report announced the establishment of the Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF) that will total £120m over the three Financial Years (FYs) 2005/6 to 2007/8. The FIF will finance initiatives to tackle financial exclusion. Q2. Is there a component to finance free face-to-face advice? Yes. £45m of the £120m FIF will be directed to support a significant increase in the capacity of free face-to-face money/debt advice. This will be spent in the latter two of the three years (so FYs 2006/7 and 2007/8) in tranches of £15m and £30m. Possible partners need to, therefore, understand that there will be no financial assistance for their activities from this aspect of the FIF until at least April 2006. Q3. But we wanted the FIF to help us in FY 2005/6; can’t it? Not from the face-to-face debt advice portion it can’t. We advise strongly that you look to other funding sources immediately to help you with current funding but consider how the face-to-face debt advice fund may help thereafter. Q4. Why is this money only being given to support face-to-face advice? This is in recognition that the supply of free face-to-face debt advice falls far short of demand and financially excluded consumers with debt problems are unable to access this when they need it. Q5. What about telephone advice? Steps are already in place to increase telephone debt advice capacity. This is currently mainly catered for by the CCCS (Consumer Credit Counselling Service), Payplan and the National Debtline. Work is underway to develop a gateway to these services which can be promoted nationally. It will act as a filter sending callers to the most appropriate service for their circumstances, either telephone based or face-to-face. The expansion of face-to-face debt advice will be planned to complement the telephone services available and vice versa. Q6. What is the timetable? DTI has launched a Bid Request Document seeking bids from potential partners for funding to help increase the provision of free face-to-face debt advice in England and Wales. This sets the following timetable:
Q7. What are the geographical areas and/or social groups characterised by high financial exclusion? Details can be found in the Bid Request Document. Lead Partner Role QuestionsQ8. What would the lead partner’s main role be? We see them as pulling together the bids, mainly in a geographic area. This would include the activities described below in rationalising bid applications and moulding the most effective complementary partnerships including partners able to access “hard to reach” clients. After the selection of the partnerships to be awarded funding, we expect that they will set up any contracts/agreements with other partners; monitor the partners’ performance against Key Performance Indicators (KPI); distribute the funds when the KPIs are met; collate and submit monitoring reports; deal with requests for the project evaluation; and resolve disputes within the partnership. Q9. Since there are no funds until next April, is it worthwhile investing resource now as a lead partner? We would hope that lead partners would see the benefit of investing time in putting together strong bids for their area. £15m and £30m is a lot of money over two years but there will be much demand and we expect that it will soon be allocated. To increase the chance that more goes to their area, potential partners should be willing to invest the resource to work up a stronger bid than those others will be putting forward. The lead partner will have to invest the most resource but they will, typically, be a larger organisation that will want to bid for a larger portion. They can increase the possibility of meeting success by investing in the partnership approach. Going solo will decrease their chance. They will also be able to bid for the necessary funds for the infrastructure to support their potential lead partner status from next April. This could remain available to them for the long term and increase their professionalism and overall capabilities. Q10. Does it matter that the lead partner is a member of one particular group? No. Lead partners who are serious about creating the strongest bid will want to treat proposed partners totally fairly and only rule out participation, or scale back support requests, in an objective fashion with no consideration of the group a potential partner may be a member of. It is through the collaboration of diverse partners that stronger bids will arise, building on each others’ strengths and using niche members to add something extra to the offering. Q11. Could lead partners reject potential partners? Yes, for there could be good reasons as to why they did not complement the rest of the proposed partnership or in no way provided reasonable linkages. Yes, if their partnership was concentrated on certain areas it might well be that potential partners approached them from outside that area. Having said that, the DTI is well disposed towards large geographic bids, assuming there are reasonable grounds for linkages between the partners involved. Yes. There are criteria set out in the Bid Request Document which overall partnerships, and individual potential members, run risks if they ignore for they can be sure that others will meet them. Lead partners will not want to weaken a bid by including partners who refused to conform to particular criteria. Q12. Could training be a problem? It is probable that partnerships will want to pursue training via the Money Advice Trust’s “wiseradviser” (http://www.wiseradviser.org/) as the long established agreed sector provider. If there were problems anticipated with potential members wanting an alternative provider then the lead partner might wish to decline participation because of the benefits of simultaneous standard training. However, if a diversity of training was acceptable to the partnership, then other training packages - of suitable standing - could prove fine in a potential partner’s plans. Q13. Could lead partners ask potential partners to consider cutting back their proposals? Yes, e.g. if they seem larger than similar agencies have made and the probable ceiling for the partnership budget is looking likely to be breached. Q14. Should not all potential partners’ bids be cut back by similar percentages if such a probable ceiling for the partnership’s overall budget is looking problematic? There could be grounds for doing this but this could encourage initial overbidding. A decision process taken on merit might also suggest targeted requests for scale backs. Q15. What if there are two (or more) lead partners for an area? It may well become soon clear who has the momentum to put together the strongest bid and they will begin to attract the stronger support. Even before momentum has started, it may be obvious who will be the strongest bid. The “lesser” bid and its leader may suggest a merger of their best elements at that point. This approach would appear sensible. It may suit some potential partners to submit the same bid to each of the alternative lead partners. This should not be frowned on. Ultimately, the bids may merge, as described above, to make a more powerful bid from their area relative to the other bids being made to the DTI from around the country. Q16. What if an organisation feels strong enough to make a solo bid? The clear indication from the DTI is that partnership bids will be favoured. This means that solo bids start with a handicap that would be removed by linking with others to realise the benefits of cooperative partnership and to meet better the requirements set out in the Bid Request Document. However, national bids may, by their nature, rise above this consideration. Q17. Could partners with no debt advice experience be included in partnership bids if they hosted advice centre outreach sessions run/ managed by other partners? Yes. This could be a mechanism for getting to hard to reach or BME clients.
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