Capital gains

Many people have poor financial skills and this often leads them to make ill informed decisions on their money matters. Research shows that just over a quarter of adults don't think they are good at managing their mony. (NOP consumer research 2004)

Citizens Advice Financial skills for life provides face-to-face personal finance education projects to a number of audiences, from young adults just starting out through to people in retirement. Read more about some of these projects below or see our publication Capital gains ( 310kb) (Summer 2005).

Working with young people in North Liverpool

Peter Tyson was a money adviser at North Liverpool CAB before becoming a trainer for the project.

“We began to realise the extent of the problem, when more and more young people came into the bureau with issues clearly linked to their financial illiteracy. Sometimes we’d get a young person who’d actually become homeless as a direct result of their inability to handle their money,” says Peter. ”We really wanted to get involved in more preventative work.”

Increasing confidence for the over-50s in Islington

Islington CAB was already delivering learning-based initiatives to its clients through a contract with the Learning and Skills Council, when it started financial skills workshops for the over 50s and their families. Funded by Prudential, the bureau attracted some match funding from Islington Council.

“Our experiences targeting advice at the over 50s showed us that clients had very little financial confidence,” says Maureen Smith, Financial Literacy Tutor. “We try to give people the self-assurance to deal with their money in an informed and constructive manner. Courses also include use of IT, an area in which these clients can be less confident.”

Financial skills courses for prisoners in East Anglia

Fenland CAB runs financial skills programmes for prerelease prisoners at five prisons in East Anglia, as well as for ex-offenders on probation.

Tutor Martin Cox worked as an adviser at the CAB based Whitemoor maximum-security men’s prison. The courses, delivered in partnership with the Foundation Training Company, are made up of four modules - banking, budgeting, debt and credit and benefits.

“For many of the men I tutor, the idea of budgeting is totally alien. Their poor money management skills can even increase the risk of further crime as it’s easy to become despondent if you find it tricky to budget on a low income.” says Martin.

The course covers issues the men will face on release, like service charges in hostels, paying rent in advance, applying for social fund grants and basic banking.

From basic skills to financial skills in Walsall

Many people are disadvantaged and become very socially isolated because of their low levels of literacy and numeracy. Prudential funding enhances the wider basic skills work that Walsall CAB provides under their contract with the Learning and Skills Council.

“We were seeing people with poor experiences of learning who are very sensitive about their lack of skills,” says David Foxall, Financial Literacy Coordinator. “When they first come, their self-esteem is often very low.”

Bureau advisers refer clients who they can see are struggling. The team at Walsall CAB also offer training to young people referred to them by Jobcentre Plus, who are on the New Deal, the Government’s strategy to get people into work.

The tutors tailor a personal plan of things they’d like to achieve individually. Once they’ve built up their social, group, maths and English skills, they are ready to move onto the financial skills work.

Reaching isolated communities in Powys

The financial skills project at Cyngor ar Bopeth Powys CAB delivers training to people living in isolated rural locations, where lack of access to services can result in social exclusion. The population of Powys in Wales is less than 130,000 yet the county covers approximately a quarter of Wales.

“Issues in a largely rural area can differ to those in a more urban environment,” says Jayne Wynn, Financial Literacy Trainer. “As accessing services can mean arranging a day trip to the nearest town, people often just never get around to it.”

The project is also reaching out to people living in places like the Oldford Estate in Welshpool, labeled as a place of ‘urban deprivation in a rural setting’.

Jayne is working with Communities First, the Welsh Assembly’s flagship programme to address social exclusion and to develop peer support groups in the area.

Developing skills to deal with everyday situations in Northumberland

Research by Debt Advice Within Northumberland (DAWN), a CAB money advice project, along with local mental health agencies in Northumberland, has shown the negative impact that money worries and debt problems can have on mental health.

The research found debt was an added stress, causing anxiety and depression, and compounding emotional and physical ill-health. “It often appears as part of a pattern of stress precipitating admission,” said one psychologist.

DAWN’s project, targeted at mental health service users, is unique in recruiting volunteers with experience of mental illness themselves and training them to deliver financial assertiveness sessions to mental health service users.

“This means that the workshops are run by people who really know what they are talking about when it comes to issues faced by people with mental health needs,” says Liz Chadwick, DAWN manager. “This peer-led approach seems to result in much more participative sessions.”

Teaching financial skills to newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers in Bradford

Bradford CAB had already been working with refugees and asylum seekers for a number of years, when it joined forces with Bradford Action for Refugees, to help people fleeing the conflict in countries that made up the former Yugoslavia, in 1992.

“Many people from Bosnia and Kosovo were arriving in the city, often traumatised and with nothing but the clothes they stood up in,” says Razina Bostan of Bradford CAB. “They need to know how the various systems work. We also have to be aware of the varying cultural attitudes relevant to the way we deliver the training, like Islamic attitudes to borrowing money, paying interest and so on.“

The financial skills project teaches new arrivals the basics like how the banking system works, how to get a gas supply and general budgeting.

Working with local partner agencies to reach learners in Wigan

Most project coordinators have found recruiting learners ‘cold’ is a thankless task.

“It’s hard to convince a 16-year-old that financial skills are relevant,” says Nigel Ash from Wigan CAB. “Sticking up a poster and hoping they turn up just didn’t work for us.”

Nigel has built up a range of partnerships with local agencies and delivers financial skills training to their clients.

They include sessions at WAVE, a halfway house for women who have suffered domestic violence; workshops at three Family Resource Centres and money management courses for individuals at Tunstall House, a clubhouse for people with enduring mental health problems.

The project's relationship with Coops Foyer, which provides support for 16-25 year olds, has been one of the most successful.

Tansy Abbott was 17 when, because of family problems, she spent some time living in Foyer accommodation. “I learnt a lot,” says Tansy. “We did budgeting, looking at bills and prioritising debts. It was about avoiding debt, which I’ve done." Tansy now has a full time job with an IT company.

Taking financial skills on site to partner organisations in Bracknell

Bracknell CAB hadn’t done any financial literacy work before Financial Skills for Life, but advisers were seeing £1 million worth of debt cases come through the door each year. The bureau wanted to take a more preventative approach to the problem.

The bureau focussed on local partnerships, running courses on partners’ premises, increasing their clients’ knowledge of things like the right to cancel a credit agreement and judging priority and non-priority debts.

Anne Harding, financial literacy coordinator, established connections with a huge range of local agencies as well as providing training as part of the Department of Education and Skills’ Lifelong Learning programme.

• Read more about the Prudential funded  Financial Skills for Life projects in our publication Capital gains ( 310kb).

• Read more about financial skills work across the Citizens Advice service in our publication Net gains

• We also publish evidence reports, briefings, responses to consultations and parliamentary briefings on consumer and debt issues.