No Answer Comes

Economic recession affected the major part of households. No wonder that many of them appeal to independent advice of debt charities. No answer comes. Debt charities are so buried with calls that they can only answer half of them. For example, National Debtline has to turn away 25,000 calls a month. Every day the part Government-funded charity National Debtline receives 1,600 calls, but physically they are able to answer only 800 of them. The problem of incapacity to help four million people who need the help of National Debtline this year was aroused at the Building Societies Association annual conference in Harrogate. In order to meet the needs of the general public, the charity organization should have more funds both, financial and human resources. The current circumstances made them employ extra 50 advisors. Now the Charity will be able to cope with around 1250 calls a day. Still, it is not enough. Joanna Elson, chief executive of the Money Advice Trust, which is at the head of National Debtline, called upon the building industry players to assist homeowners immediately. Early interference is the solution. If debtors are claiming for help having found themselves in the difficult situation they need to be offered support of lenders, which is seen as a way to minimize further problems and to avoid extreme situations beforehand. The Money Advice Trust runs both, Business Debtline and National Debtline. The budget of the organization is estimated at £11.2 million for 2009, one half of which is provided by the Government, and the other half - by the financial services industry. In 2008 The Money Advice Trust was given extra £5.85 million by the Chancellor for 2009 and 2010 to function. Citizens Advice assisted the trust having given £10 million, which will permit bureaus to support an extra 600,000 needed in help over the next two years. Experts of the company say that with the increase of unemployment, debt charities are observing unprecedented demand for their services, associated with such issues as arrears and debts, from people struggling with mortgage repayments or unsecured debt. Sometimes it takes people up to three weeks to get a piece of advice. Every working day advisors deal with about 7,250 new debt problems with the average unsecured debt of our clients standing at £17,000. Ms Elson commented that the main efforts should be focus on the creation and launch of the projects that permit to help people in a more efficient way, for example a new “self-help” system.