As Policy Manager for CAP, part of my role is to represent the charity at the political party conferences. This year I attended both Conservative and Labour conferences, as the governing party and the main opposition in Westminster respectively. …

This is the first blog in the Changing tack series. Here we introduce the concept of ‘officialdom’ and how this relates to poverty. The whole series is available here. In our lives there are lots of people who hold a position of authority over us — the obvious ones are…

With the Olympic Games underway in Tokyo I’ve been thinking back to the London 2012 Olympics — nearly ten years ago now! I was living in London at the time and working at Wembley Stadium, so I was offered a ticket to watch the dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony. …

When Richard’s marriage broke down, he became homeless, was diagnosed with a tumor and lost his job, all in quick succession. He found himself sinking fast and unable to plug the holes that were letting water in before a new one appeared. Debt advice threw him a lifeline which pulled…

Every year I dread October. It’s the month I first moved into my house, and as a diligent bargain hunter, it is now the month I spend evenings and weekends shopping around to find the best deals before all my household bills are auto-renewed on to more expensive deals. We…

Today, the Government’s Breathing Space scheme (officially the Debt Respite Scheme) opens for business in England and Wales. What does the scheme’s launch mean for the debt advice sector? And, more importantly, will it offer the 2.8 million people currently facing problem debt what they need to become debt free? …

Last week the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) published their annual national income statistics which take us to the 2020 financial year end (FYE). These statistics give us a ‘pre-pandemic baseline’ — a picture of where households were before the wider impacts of COVID-19 struck. Before delving into the…

We were promised that there would be ‘more to come’. The Chancellor said he would do ‘whatever it takes’ to protect jobs and livelihoods, and this budget offered the first glimpse of what lies ahead on the ‘road to recovery’. …

It hit the headlines — ‘Buy now, pay later firms such as Klarna face stricter controls’ — but this was just one of the 26 recommendations made by the Woolard Review report. Commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Board, who asked the outgoing interim CEO, Chris Woolard, to complete…