Monthly Debt News (February 2023)

Monthly Debt News looks at debts and the causes of debts in Britain from a variety of sources selected for professionals to make the debt sector simple.

This month’s Debt News includes: *** Courts wave through warrant prepayment meter - Bailiffs forced to wear body cameras -Ofgem review customer standards of energy suppliers - DWP admits court defeat and universal credit discrimination - FCA consultation on debt packers - a spike in late payments and small businesses - Bite-Size Stats: Repossession, Consumer judgments, arrears & student debts

Articles

Exclusive: Courts waved through warrants for prepayment meter fitting

Courts waved through applications by energy firms to forcibly install prepayment meters in people's homes, according to internal advice leaked to the BBC.

Previous guidelines required careful scrutiny of warrant applications, but new advice to courts deems those rules “disproportionate".

More on the issue: link

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Ofgem review reveals that customer service standards of energy suppliers must improve

On Thursday 2 Feb 2023, energy regulator Ofgem has published supplier ratings from its fourth ‘deep dive’ into energy supplier standards. The Market Compliance Reviews are proactive, market-wide assessments of energy suppliers’ performance on key areas.

More on the issue: link

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DWP admits court defeat after universal credit discrimination led to suicide thoughts

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has admitted repeatedly breaching the Equality Act, after a disabled man was left needing hospital treatment three times for suicidal thoughts caused by months of failures by universal credit advisers and jobcentres.

More on the issue: link

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FCA consults on debt packager referral fees ban

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has opened a consultation into a proposed ban on debt packager referral fees from debt solution providers, as part of its work to protect consumer outcomes.

The consultation will remain open until 2 March, during which time the FCA will update its analysis on the market. If the proposals are implemented, the measures would end the current debt packager business model.

More on the issue: link

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Small Business Survey reveals true effects of late payments on SME owners

A survey jointly conducted by two leading UK Debt Collection agencies has revealed the true extent of the effects of late payment on the nations local Small Business owners. There has been a spike in late payments to Small Businesses across the UK as the economy continues to remain unstable in the post pandemic era.

More on the issue: link

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Bitesize Stats

Repossession: UK Finance estimates that there were 700 homeowner properties taken into possession in the UK in Q3 2022, up from 420 in Q3 2021(Money Charity)

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Consumer Judgements: The total value of consumer judgments has seen an increase of 44% this quarter, from £355 million in Q3 2022 to £512 million in Q4 2022. This increase is the highest as compared to the past four quarters. (Register Trust Ltd)

Consumer judgments have seen an increase of 59% in the average value, from £1,833 in Q3 2022 to £2,923 in Q4 2022 (Register Trust Ltd)

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Arrears: According to the Financial Conduct Authority, at the end of Q3 2022 there were 150,462 mortgage loan accounts with arrears of more than 1.5% of the current loan balance (Money Charity)

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Student Debt: In England, the average debt for the latest (2020/21) cohort to enter repayment was £45,060, an increase of 12.6% on the previous year (Money Charity)

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A debt free path for a mental health sufferer

It’s a well-known fact that individuals who suffer from a hampered mental capacity - be it mental health or learning difficulties - are most likely to be vulnerable in our communities. They are also more likely to be victims of miss-sold products and services by companies, even though organisations that are providing financial products and services have a duty under the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to take extra care towards these individuals. This is what the FCA has to say about vulnerable customers: ‘ The vulnerability of the customer, in particular where the firm understands the customer has some form of mental capacity limitation or reasonably suspects this to be so because the customer displays indications of some form of mental capacity limitation (see ■ CONC 2.10) But due to a culture of intensive selling to consumers, generated by employers placing and enforcing - often difficult and unrealistic - performance goals wh...

Betar Bangla radio’s Ripon Ray: How fashionista turned political activist and debt advisor

PUBLISHED: 09:02 13 March 2019 | UPDATED: 09:03 13 March 2019 Emma Bartholomew Ripon Ray: Picture: Rukya Khan Debt advisor and radio talk show host Ripon Ray tells Emma Bartholomew how he’s seeing more and more people who are unable to just pay the basic bills Ripon Ray: Picture: Nick De Marco Self-confessed “arty-farty creative” Ripon Ray originally set out to be a fashionista in life, when he “found his calling” and changed track to become an activist. He’d been studying at the London School of Fashion, but going on an anti-fascist protest “triggered a couple of things”. “I dumped my studies and went to Kingsley College where I was doing full-on activism, and organising protest marches,” he told the Gazette . “I loved it but I got kicked out of there because I was too much of an activist and I wasn’t focusing on my studies.” He knuckled under, bagged a history degree and started out in the charity sector as a housing advi...

Debt Talk: The welfare state, deficit budget and debt (podcast)

On this month's Debt Talk podcast, Ripon Ray explored: 'The welfare state, deficit budget & debt '. Trussell Trust, a network of food banks in the UK, gave out nearly 3 million emergency food parcels to people facing financial hardship, and it has noticed a 37% rise in accessing its service compared to the previous year. The question for this month's panellists is: have we moved away from support provided by the state and diverted to the third sector? To assist Debt Talk, panellists for this month were the following: Helen Barnard - policy director of Trussell Trust, explained the welfare state's history and purpose and how the UK has significantly shifted away from its initial cause. Food banks are now playing the state's role because the current welfare system is not providing sufficient support to meet the needs of vulnerable and low-income households. The trust is seeing people with disability and working people seeking help because the current social se...

Your Doctor Debt: Ripon Ray

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