About A4e

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About A4e

• A company working internationally that designs,
  manages and delivers public services to c350,000
  consumers per annum from 200 UK outlets
• Works for and in partnership with governments,
  private and voluntary sector organisations
• A social purpose business combine commercial
  principles and social values
• Aims to deliver joined up and holistic services
  for our customers

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A4e financial inclusion and advice services

• Provision of outreach telephone models of debt
  advice
• Social Welfare Legal Aid tackling the
  consequences of financial exclusion and
  developing financial education programmes
• National provider of the Money Advice Service in
  England and Northern Ireland
• Delivery of financial education in schools, the
  community and prisons
• Embedding financial inclusion interventions into
  our Work Programme model

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Current challenges how services are provided

• Services commissioned in silos leading to
  fragmented delivery, difficult to join-up on the
  front line
• FIT debt advice
• Legal Aid
• Financial Capability
• Growth Fund
• Social Fund
• Local Authorities and Housing Associations
• Financial Education in schools
• Issues around consistent standards or measures of
  success
• Symptom focused delivery rather than tackling the
  root causes
• Not enough focus on the supply-side, ensuring
  access to affordable and appropriate products on
  scale

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Current challenges the help people need

• UK personal debt at 1.5 trillion
• 4.5 million adults with problem debts
• 181m of personal interest paid each day
• 1.5m people remain outside the banking system and
  scope of mainstream products
• 200 extra costs each year for household
  commodities for the excluded
• Wider issues of deprivation both cause and result
  from financial exclusion
• unemployment/worklessness
• eviction
• family breakdown
• depression and mental illness
• poor physical health

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The opportunity for a new response

• The end of the Financial Inclusion Taskforce
• Uncertainty about future ownership/leadership in
  promoting financial inclusion
• Significant budgetary pressures across all
  sectors
• Political will to join up services
• Open Public Services
• Increasing focus on outcomes and payment by
  results

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Our Solution Design Principles

• The sometimes artificial boundaries between
  financial inclusion, financial capability and
  debt advice need to be removed
• Preventing financial exclusion is just as
  important as supporting inclusion
• Services should tackle the multi-faceted nature
  of peoples problems greater integration with
  other services is required
• Financial advice (in all its forms) should be an
  integral part of a wider service looking to
  prevent exclusion and address both its causes and
  symptoms

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Our Solution The Total Person Model

• The Model
• Tackling exclusion and deprivation through
  empowerment and personal ownership
• Providing advice and support to solve multiple
  issues through a single service which understands
  the individual and their wider circumstances
• Greater focus on preventing and pre-empting
  problems, rather than addressing the consequences
  of failure
• Sequencing of support through triage and
  prioritisation
• Consistent support over the longer term
• How
• Individuals supported by a single advocate/broker
• Existing budgets aggregated, providing a single
  pot to support all needs
• Payment linked to outcomes, both short and long
  term

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The Work Programme opportunity

• Work Programme providers are mandated to move
  people into sustainable employment and away from
  benefits dependency
• We are paid out of government savings
  long-term, sustainable outcomes
• We have freedom on how we design and deliver our
  services
• Our customer knowledge clearly indicates
  financial inclusion is critical to sustainable
  employment
• - removing unmanageable debts
• - improving wider well-being
• - being able to budget a wage
• - protecting against consumer credit risks
• - affordable housing
• - protection and insurance
• Tackling financial exclusion is integral to our
  service

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Making it work Five building blocks to
employment
Access
To meaningful, sustainable jobs and services that
support improving their lives

Improve aspirations, motivation and insight to
move forward. Includes wanting to manage their
money well, access affordable products and get
out of debt cycles
Outlook
Skills
Skills, knowledge and experience. Both for the
workplace and in life budget skills, financial
capability
Ability to take advantage of opportunities to
work, including reducing anxiety around debt,
mental health support, stable housing, access to
bank account, free from legal issues etc
Capacity
Ability to withstand negative circumstances,
including effective decision making skills around
money personalised support network access to
affordable credit and ability to manage stress
Reliance
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Collaboration, Collaboration, Collaboration

• We already have 60 end-to-end subcontractors and
  400 specialist intervention partners from across
  the public, voluntary and private sectors
• Our model is about joined-up delivery we must
  work with other providers of front line services,
  allowing organisations to use our Work Programme
  resources and access our customers
• In driving sustainable employment, we hope our
  by-product is a legacy of sustainable financial
  inclusion

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Operational and delivery issues

• Cost of delivery can be reduced but it must be
  done with care
• Better integration of channels
• Greater use of telephone advice alongside face to
  face
• Join up requires major operational and systems
  change
• shared infrastructure
• shared customers
• shared customer data
• transparent referral networks
• The supply-side must come to the party, with
  government incentives.
• Solutions needed to provide short-term lending,
  affordable loans to those excluded from
  mainstream products top-up savings, pre-paid
  cards with affordable charging rates, affordable
  insurance