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Money Advice Service plans £2.5m cuts to budget

by Rachael Revesz on Dec 20, 2012 at 12:58

The Money Advice Service (MAS) is consulting on £2.5 million of cuts to its budget for next year.

The costs of the MAS website, face-to-face and telephone services will be down to £43.7 million next year, compared to £46.3 million this year, according to the group's 2013/14 budget which it is consulting on. Around 30,000 people use the services each week, it said.

The consultation paper also revealed plans for the MAS to fund 150,000 debt advice sessions in 2013/2014, up 50,000 from this year.

The MAS plans to launch a new range of services targeted at younger adults and lower to middle income families, including a new educational programme for school-leavers, as well as making more effort to standardise its debt advice service.

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8 comments so far. Why not have your say?

So the average cost to the industry of those 30,000 per week visitors is only £3 per visit.

What a bargain - not!

What benefits of MAS has so far been evidenced?

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Big deal

A reduction of £250 million would have been newsworthy and meaningful

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I just wonder at how they can run it for such a miserly sum.

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Paul Howard means £30 not £3

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And as some of those visit were IFAs and paraplanners using it for a quick test of annuity rates, I expect the number of 'target market' users is far lower anyway. Also, I wonder if the 30,000 figure is for site visits a week, or really is 30,000 descrete users?

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The debt advice sessions may come in handy for IFA's disenfranchised by RDR and those left struggling to pay for this white elephant.

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Face to Face? what face to face!!!!! are they on about.

Is this face to face advice?

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Simon Mansell

Dec 20, 2012 at 21:13

MAS is guilty of two lies:

1. Free

2. Advice

Question: How come the "new" Financial Conduct Authority (Old FSA) has raised questions about whether free banking is free and yet they are quite happy to peddle the same myth about free financial advice? At £43.7 million it MAS is neither free or advice as it carries no regulatory responsibility if incorrect!

Seems to the FCA/FSA New Year resolution will be to maintain duplicitous statements and standards.

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