When we wrote here a few weeks ago about how a new handbook for debt advisers in Scotland , we got some feedback asking us to talk more about how we ensure the quality of the advice we give. We’re happy to do this because it’s important to us that people have trust in our advice. For the last 20 years Citizens Advice Scotland has worked with Money Advice Scotland on a Scottish Government funded project, to make sure that voluntary sector advice services in Scotland are as efficient and reliable as they can be.
This is the project that I work for: the Money Advice, Training, Research and Information Consultancy Service (MATRICS). Debt remains one of the biggest single issues that is brought to the Scottish CAB network, second only to social security benefits (though the two are often inter-linked). The good news is that we really can help people in debt.
There are various things we can do: very often creditors are actually willing to talk about finding solutions to the problem, but that of course requires the person in debt to contact them and so many people are frightened to do this and can’t face it or perhaps don’t know how to do it, so the debt remains unpaid and the interest spirals. MATRICS equips advisers with the skills to contact the creditor on the client’s behalf and encourage a pragmatic engagement between them to reach an outcome that both can accept. These solutions vary enormously depending on the specifics of the case, but for example the creditor mig.