Credit counselling started in the USA in the 1950's to assist a new generation of credit card users and their families, and has since grown into a force for good.
It developed in its current form in the 1980s with charities that were based in individual states joining in a national federation (the National Foundation for Credit Counselling) and providing people in financial difficulties with an alternative to bankruptcy by offering advice and, where suitable, a repayment service.
Credit counselling in the UK
It was as a result of seeing such an appropriate service in action in the USA that Vic Ware O.B.E. and Malcolm Hurlston introduced the charity FCC into the UK in 1993 through a pilot scheme established in Leeds. The pilot was intended to test whether the approach, which helped many thousands of people in the USA, could be equally effective in the UK.
The charity was introduced in response to growing pressure from the Government and media calling for action by the credit industry to provide a safety net for the rising number of its customers who found themselves in financial difficulties.
The pilot was successful thanks to support from GE, Barclays, Leeds Permanent (now part of HBOS), Registry Trust and Experian.
National debt charity
By 1996, we had gained the support of nearly all the large financial organisations within the UK’s credit industry and the pace of development increased. We have since expanded into nine further centres and a Northern Ireland partnership. These cover most of the population centres of the United Kingdom and CCCS is now the leading debt charity in the UK.
The original plan to offer mainly face to face counselling has been overtaken by other methods and now, through our free national telephone service and on-line counselling on the internet, we are able to help people with debt problems wherever they live in the UK and in the way which suits them best.
The demand for specialist debt advice has grown considerably over the past few years and we have responded by increasing capacity through recruitment and the introduction of new technologies to improve our efficiencies and our effectiveness for the people that come to us for help.
Growth and innovation
We look to develop greater depth in our service to our beneficiaries. In 2007 we set our objective to deliver greater casework to all the possible outcomes for people with financial difficulties. We introduced a subsidiary company to provide and process individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs), another form of repayment scheme, for our clients in a much more ethical and supportive way than provided through profit making companies and we are the only non-profit organisation to provide IVAs on a charitable basis.
In the past two years we have created four further charitable services delivering extensive help and support to the self-employed, people with mortgage difficulties, people unsure about going bankrupt, and people requiring a welfare benefits check. We have already set out future objectives to develop such specialised services further through the introduction of help and support for people with insufficient income to meet basic household expenses, people that require help and support in creating and keeping to a household budget, and people who find the whole situation too much to comprehend or face and require personal support over a long period.
In all our support and back office activities, including the management of repayment plans, we have developed highly efficient, automated processes to ensure our beneficiaries receive consistent, high quality and free services. We are dedicated to introducing new methods of counselling, advice and casework to the growing number of financially distressed people in the UK.
Future development
We have developed strong and effective protocols for advice that are focused on our beneficiaries, delivering best advice on their financial difficulties appropriate to their unique circumstances, putting the individual at ease, being non-judgmental and allowing as much time as needed, whilst still being conscious of the individual’s need for resolution.
From the basis of an approach borrowed from across the Atlantic, we have become the leading debt charity in the UK with an approach, processes and systems that inspire other such organisations around the world.