- Introduction
" Although the rich used most credit, it was the poor who had most debt."
Richard Berthoud and Elaine Kempson
" 'credit' refers to any form of loan. However, although technically everyone using
credit is in 'debt' because money is owed, if payments are made this is not problematic. Thus,
the term 'debt' is used here to refer to any situation in which due payments have not been made.
In other words, debt equals default or arrears."
Janet Ford
In the UK Money Advice was first offered in the 1970's. The discipline was new and it
developed piecemeal without any plan or cohesive oversight, the location of the service was
where ever the funding arose and the people who implemented a service did so for a number of
reasons, which were not always the same. The full extent of money advice strategies, options,
legal possibilities and affects were not fully explored at the time and it is not suprising that
the problem of defining what was 'Money Advice' and what was 'Overindebtedness' was not
recognised.
In England in the early eighties (1980's) the advice sector asked itself the question "What
do we call the services we provide - money advice, debt advice or debt counselling?" There is
still some echoes of this debate reverberating around the dusty case files, debates and meetings
of advisers and the lack of a definitive conclusion has left a chink for this confusion to be
used to allow a whole number of services to be included in a general term of 'Money Advice'.
Unfortunately the Money/ Debt Advice Services that were created were rarely autonomous and
designated Money / Debt Advice Units but tended to be add-ons to Welfare Rights, Housing
Services, Consumer Services or generalist services [for example: in CAB's]. This added further
confusion to the debate as many advisers were seen as Welfare Rights, Social Work, Trading
Standards Consumer Advisers - who did some money / debt advice.
