Helping People Manage Debt

The Debt Casework Service helps residents who are experiencing money problems, to prioritise their debts and gives them support to reduce them and improve their money management skills in the future. The team also helps with budgeting, making sure people have access to all the benefits they are entitled to and gives one to one, hands-on specialist support, including writing letters to creditors and negotiating payment plans. The team is accredited to facilitate bankruptcy petitions and debt relief orders.

Ways we can help you if you are experiencing financial difficulties:

Talk to you about your money problems
Help you to prioritise your debts
Attempt to reduce your debt
Help you with budgeting
Make sure you are receiving all the benefits you are entitled to
Give specialist support, including writing letters to creditors and negotiating payment plans

Proof of Identity

We will be limited in our advice and actions, if you do not provide proof of identity, income and expenditure.

You will need to show us proof of your identity, income and expenditure. We are required to ask for these by the following organisations: Our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA); our funder, the Monday and Pension Service (MAPS); and our national organisation, Citizens Advice.

To prove who you are, we would prefer to see a current document that includes your photograph such as your:

Driving Licence Photo Card or Passport
We will also need to see a recent notice, statement or bill as these will show us your address. Examples would include:
- Benefit Notice
- Credit Card/Bank Statement
- Gas or Electricity Bill

Please note that we cannot accept mobile phone bills.

If you cannot provide any of the above, then we will discuss what you can provide and what might be sufficient for us.

Proof of Income

We will also need to see proof of your income so you would need to show documents such as:

Benefit/Tax Credit Notices (these include copies of Universal Credit Payments from a Universal Credit Journal); or
Pay Slips - that would allow us to make a reliable calculation of your monthly earnings, if your income varies we might need multiple pay slips; or
Other Proofs such as a Bank Statement (if you provide these proofs, we may need further documents to show us how the calculation has been calculated)

We will retain copies of these proofs

Proof of Expenditure

You will need to show us recent documents showing how much you have to spend on a range of bills and other expenses. You may not have all of these, but examples would be:

Rent/Mortgage payments
Council Tax
TV Licence
Electricity bills
Gas Bills
Water Bills
Childcare costs
Adult care costs
Child Maintenance
Hire Purchase
Pension Payments
Life Insurance
Building/Contents Insurance
Mortgage Protection
Health Insurance
Phone Bills (home or mobile)

We will not take copies of any photograph documents you provide, but will record what we have seen. We may take copies of other documents as part of information gathering needed to act on your behalf.