In this month’s Debt Talk podcast, we discuss: 'Cars & Their Costs'. To explore the topic, Ripon Ray speaks with: - Alison Tooze , from the BPA - British Parking Association - Sam Nurse, CEO of Money Advice Hub Alison Tooze emphasised the importance of preventing parking-related crises and outlined steps drivers can take to reduce the risk of receiving fixed penalty notices or penalty charge notices. She explained the differences between tickets issued under criminal and civil law, how each is recovered, and the associated costs. Alison Tooze described how disputes can arise when road users believe tickets have been wrongly issued, and she outlined the process for challenging them. She noted that appeal decision-makers can also take mitigating circumstances into account. Sam Nurse highlighted the importance of participating in a public consultation on the new Private Parking Code of Practice, which is seeking views on proposals to raise standards in the private pa...

  Just over 13% of the UK population are self-employed. Is being self-employed the way forward or are we forced to choose the path? In this month’s Debt Talk podcast, Ripon Ray spoke with three guests from different perspectives. James Harris has been self-employed for nearly 25 years in the creative sector. He explained how funding in the creative sector has been reduced. There are also very few fashion shows compared to when he began his career in the sector. His work began to dry out and it can vary from season to season. His biggest worry is personal finance since Universal Credit introduced the Minimum Income Floor leading to him getting into rent and other arrears. Andy Chamberlain - Director of Policy from the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-employed Limited - explained the direction of travel within the context of the self-employment sector. He focused on the construction sector is heavily relies on self-employment and then perhaps the creati...

Mainstream lenders are here to stay. It does not mean we are not seeing a variety of lenders in the financial market. In this month's podcast on Debt Talk, Ripon Ray spoke about: 'Alternative lending & debt'. To navigate the subject, there were experts from financial inclusion and debt. Gareth Evans  - Co-founder and director of THE FINANCIAL INCLUSION CENTRE - spoke about the variety of lenders and the make-up of lenders in the United Kingdom. He explored the relevance of alternative lenders, such as the role of local credit unions within the consumer credit market, the benefit of such lenders compared to mainstream lenders and the obligation of any lenders when dealing with vulnerable consumers in financial difficulties whilst considering affordability to borrow. Sam Nurse - CEO of Money Advice Hub  & Zeus Design Hub - spoke about the importance of living within your means and that lenders should carry out affordability assessments and treat consumers fairly at ev...

(February 2023) In this month’s podcast on Debt Talk, Ripon Ray explored the current landscape for councils to recover council tax. Since the introduction of welfare reform over ten years ago, nearly every councils in the UK expect some forms of contributions from households regardless of many households were deemed too poor to pay prior to the introduction of the reform. At the same time, Britain has seen an increase in the recovery of council tax through the Magistrates' Courts. While the number of households in arrears has increased throughout the country, there has been a surge in the use of civil enforcement agents to recover priority debt. To explore this month’s topic, Ripon Ray spoke with panelists from the debt enforcement and debt advice sector to explore the current framework in which councils work and ways council tax has been recovered. Samantha Nurse  - Founder and CEO of Money Advice Hub spoke about the way councils throughout the UK charge council tax and the way th...