By Sarah Reeve

 

Payplan has recently won two major awards at the Institute of Money Advisers (IMA) conference for new initiatives aimed at helping people deal with their debt. In the first of two blogs Sarah Reeve, Payplan’s Head of Business Development for the Voluntary and Corporate Sectors, talks about a charity partnership scheme that has already helped many people on low incomes repay their debts.

 

“We won the Best New Initiative Award for the Sustainable Debt Advice Project (SDAP) which has been led by the charity, Advice UK, with Payplan as its partner. It is a project that has provided funding to give free debt advice and repayment methods to people on low incomes – something that was badly affected by public sector spending cuts.

 

“Everyone involved is grateful for the recognition and the acknowledgement of the work we do in striving to provide positive outcomes for clients struggling with financial difficulties. We are especially proud to receive this tribute from the IMA, a distinguished organisation in the money advice sector.

 

“We began the pilot project in April last year and it ran until this March. Advice UK is the UK’s largest support network for free, independent advice centres, together with  Payplan they worked with nine agencies to provide the pilot training and provided resources to help them deal with debt related issues. Funding was also provided by Friends Provident Foundation to Advice UK in support of the pilot.

 

“The initial rationale for the SDAP was born out of the challenges facing the free money advice sector in meeting current demand for help. It provides a service to clients who are only able to make low or token payments offers to their creditors and, through Payplan, allows them to make a single monthly payment to multiple creditors.

“We believe that the SDAP has the potential to be rolled out to other agencies looking for payment options for their clients – and receiving the IMA Award has given us even more confidence that this is the case.”