Financial Advice & Support
Financial advice and support services play a vital role in helping individuals to understand and effectively manage their finances.
The support provided can not only help tackle poverty but also have a significant impact on individual's employment prospects. For example, research shows that money and debt problems can:
- Distract people from job searching.
- Constrain job search activity.
- Create disincentives to work.
- Provide barriers to employment, e.g. not having a bank account can prevent people from starting a job.
- Affect the chances of employment being sustained.
Having the skills to manage your money well and having access to appropriate financial products and services is a key component in securing sustainable employment. Alongside income maximisation, debt advice and access to affordable credit the ability to budget and manage your money well plays an important role in determining life chances.
Employers and employability services should be aware of the impact that moving in and out of work can have financially. Even when individuals are able to move into employment they may experience financial shocks as debt, which was previously dormant when unemployed, may be reactivated and aggressively pursued by companies aggressively pursuing repayments. Access to good quality, impartial debt advice and affordable credit can be a life line in these situations offering individuals the opportunity to take control of their finances and pay back what they owe in a manageable way with affordable rates of interest.
Services that help individuals understand and effectively manage their
finances include:
- Money Advice Service - provides a range of practical advice, tools and resources
to help build individuals financial capability. - Money Advice Scotland - the national umbrella organisation which promotes the development of free, independent, impartial, confidential money (debt) advice and financial inclusion.
- National Debtline helpline - provides free confidential and independent advice on how to deal with debt problems.
- Citizens Advice Bureau - key provider of money and welfare advice accessed via local bureaux.
- Credit Unions - offer safe savings, affordable credit and a wide range of financial services.
- Young Scot - supports young people across Scotland to make informed financial
decisions and choices.