The Definitive: Overindebtedness

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1. 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.