StepChange News and Views

Welcome to the latest edition of StepChange News and Views, our monthly newsletter where you can keep up to date with everything happening at StepChange Debt Charity.

In this month’s newsletter:

• We reflect on Debt Awareness Week
• Three new major reports - Available now
• Our response - UK Regulators Network joint letter on debt collection
• We’ve appointed a new Chief Operating Officer
• We’ve been nominated for another award
• Our response - Work and Pensions Select Committee report on benefits

Celebrating Debt Awareness Week

Our 10th Debt Awareness Week campaign was a huge success, and we really couldn’t have done it without the support of over 450 organisations that downloaded our toolkit, shared our content, and posted using the hashtag.

Each day, we focused on a different barrier that our clients tell us prevented or delayed them from seeking debt advice, and throughout the week we conducted a range of activities to engage as many people as possible.

With the support of our partner organisations we:

• Achieved 13.4 million social impressions
• Had 2,865 uses of #DebtAwarenessWeek
• Featured in 2,896 pieces of content across social media
• Delivered more than 20 on-site awareness sessions to 100s of partner colleagues
• Gained 292 individual pieces of coverage in the media relating to Debt Awareness Week

Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and helped us to raise awareness of the help and support available for those in financial difficulty. If you’d like to find out how your organisation can support our future campaigns or how we can support your customers, contact our team at [email protected]

Our latest reports are now available:

In March we released our 2023 Statistics Yearbook which is a deep dive into emerging trends in our client data, from changing demographics and growing client numbers to evolving budget challenges. Just some of the findings include:

• The average unsecured client debt was at its highest level in a decade
• 18% of our clients are homeowners, up from 16% in 2022
• Working aged people are overrepresented in our client base, and 59% of our clients are in employment
• 42% of clients who pay an energy bill are in arrears

For additional insight and analysis of our client data , download our Statistics Yearbook here .

This month, we also released our 2023 Impact Report which showcases our achievements throughout last year and how we are delivering against our strategic objectives. Some of our key achievements included:

• Supporting over 183,000 new clients through full debt advice, a 10% rise compared to 2022
• Helping clients to repay more than ￡351 million of debt
• Processing over 50,000 Breathing Space applications
• Helping more than 17,000 people become free from problem debt

Download the report here .

This week marks the release of our latest edition in the client insights report series, titled, In work. But still in debt. This report explores the increasing number of clients in full-time employment who are seeking debt advice.?

Download the report here .?

Our response - UK Regulators Network joint letter on debt collection

Members of the UK Regulators Network the FCA, Ofgem, and Ofcom have published a joint letter setting out shared expectations in relation to debt collection and customers experiencing financial difficulty.

?Our Chief Client Officer, Richard Lane said “We know from previous research that the language used in collections communications can exacerbate problems for those facing financial difficulty, and lead to further harm rather than to greater debt recovery.” Read our full response here .

We’ve appointed a new Chief Operating Officer

We recently announced that Martin Clift will be joining StepChange as our new Chief Operating Officer in September. Martin’s wealth of experience in digital transformation projects will be invaluable as we continue our Back Office Optimisation journey.

We’re nominated for ‘Best Broker for Equity Release’

Our team have been shortlisted as ‘Best Broker for Equity Release’ in the Mortgage Strategy Awards, demonstrating the fantastic help and support they give to those in later life looking for financial freedom. Winners will be announced in May.

Work and Pensions Select Committee report on benefits

We are pleased to see the Work and Pensions Select Committee’s new report on benefit levels make a number of key recommendations that the charity supports, including:

• Making the Household Support Fund permanent
• Developing principles and a benchmark linked to living costs to deliver effective, adequate benefit levels
• Developing an ‘uprating guarantee’ to increase benefits annually, based, for example on prices

Read our full response here.