Justin Tomlinson MP, chair of the
APPG, delivered the welcome and introduced his colleague, the Inquiry Chair, Fiona Bruce MP.
Tomlinson said this was the third time he had helped launch a report for the group and that “we are making a difference”. He also highlighted the huge success of getting financial education onto the national curriculum.
Fiona Bruce said the main priority for the report was “helping young people” especially the many young people not in education or training, people in care and care leavers. She said that the government had taken notice of the previous two reports by the
APPGand she was hopeful that the government and local authorities will take this report on board as well.
She said the report had heard from a wide cross-section of different stakeholders including 13 voluntary organisations, 12 youth and social service bodies and 10 financial organisations.
Fiona Bruce highlighted some best practice including a local authority in Cornwall running a course for vulnerable young people and that Lloyds is funding a programme teaching young people with special educational needs about financial education.
She added that some parts of the faith community were particularly engaged in helping people with money and debt problems. This included
Christians Against Poverty, where 96% of the people they help are now debt free as a result. She also added the New Life Church who especially support people with addiction and mental health issues as these are often connected to financial issues; also the Welsh Government and the Quakers for their work in this area.
She concluded that these are: “all excellent programmes but they are isolated and patchy”.
The main recommendations of the report are that people working alongside vulnerable young people in the job centre plus, youth courts etc need to be trained in financial education.
Bruce added that: “People working in the organisations must be trained and not just trained to signpost people towards other help, but to provide real support and to improve partnership working”.
She said that local authorities often have a local strategy to help young people as they come out of care. Fiona Bruce said they do “marvellous work with organisations across the UK, which do these things for no remuneration. With a little bit more grant money they could do so much”
She cited a personal example of her 17 year old son who opened a bank account, but was offered absolutely no advice thereafter. She called on the banks to play their part in reducing problems for young people by helping them avoid debt:
“If you sense a young person is running into trouble please take action and provide advice and support”.
She concluded:
“The cost of debt is not just financial – it is also personal and human. After all the value of a society is how they treat the most vulnerable.
Fiona thanked
pfeg, the personal financial education group who also provide the provide the secretariat for the
All Party Parliamentary Group on Financial Education for Young People.
Graham Lindsay, Group Director for Responsible Business at
Lloyds Banking Groupwhich part funded the report said:
“Can I congratulate
pfegand all members of the
APPG. I am delighted to be here with such an accomplished group of people, especially the young people.
He referred to some important examples of programme which
Lloydsis involved in including the Money for life challenge and their partnership with
Toynbee Hallin East London, training
Lloydsstaff to work with some of the most vulnerable people in Britain.
He talked about Martin, a young person at the event and quoted in the report, who had worked together with friends and colleagues to establish a credit union in Coventry. Especially given all of his colleagues have learning difficulties.
Another example was 2 young people who devised a play to perform about money management. Everyone involved in this project had either been homeless or on the verge of homelessness
“Yes all of these people fell into disadvantage, but all took control. All have moved forward in a way that is totally unexpected”.
He mentioned two young people, John and Iwo, who spoke about their experiences in front of all
Lloydsgraduates at a recent presentation.
“We need more people to join these two and we will continue to support the
APPG”.
Stacy Wairumbi from
Centrepointspoke about her personal experiences:
"I was involved in the report because I represent
Centrepoint. I used to be a homeless person and
Centrepointused to house me. Now as I’ve moved onto independent living I’ve come back and I’m now the Youth Money wise Ambassador so my stance on this is just bringing to light the issues that young homeless people face, especially with money management and obviously having opportunities to make money in the first place. And how important it is to get people around vulnerable people trained so that they can then relay that information to the young people because for a young homeless and vulnerable person your first point of contact isn’t your parent, it’s your keyworker, your job centre adviser. As sad as that is it’s very true.
Even in the report it says that 77% of young people get information on money from their parents – therefore if you are a homeless person you don’t have that.
It’s about creating opportunities for young people to be able to gain the opportunities to make money. There should be new regulations set in place by specific institutions for example banking with regards to debt. It shouldn’t be treated in the same way like just another person who went into their overdraft, if they had to pay their rent.
Rod Williams, a manager for
Christians Against Povertyadded his thoughts from the front line:
“I actually manage a centre myself in Widnes – so I get to do the face to face stuff where I go into family homes and help put together budget plans, debt management plans because we work with a local church we have a befrienders scheme so we connect clients with befrienders as well – just to provide that emotional support so when they are journeying with us through their debt management plan, for them to be able to talk to someone at any time. Sometimes there are other issues like addiction and relationship breakdown, divorce.
I think early prevention is key – most clients of mine said if they had had education when they were younger growing up the likelihood is they wouldn’t have gone down the route and their parents the same”.
Phill Holdsworth, Head of external affairs at
Christians Against Povertyexplained their current funding model:
“Our income in any given year is about £6million, and about a third of that comes from individuals who support us on a regular basis. The rest comes from churches, grants and trust funds”
Justin Tomlinson MP closed the meeting by drawing together all of the suggestions together. He added:
“We have a listening and receptive government. We will lobby them hard”.