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Financially Inclusive Tower Hamlets Graham Fisher Chief Executive September 2014

Financially Inclusive Tower Hamlets Graham Fisher Chief Executive September 2014. It’s not all about financial education. The financial health environment. FITH: History. Began in early 2010 with conversations about failure to improve financial exclusion

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Financially Inclusive Tower Hamlets Graham Fisher Chief Executive September 2014

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  1. Financially Inclusive Tower HamletsGraham FisherChief Executive September 2014

  2. It’s not all about financial education...

  3. The financial health environment

  4. FITH: History • Began in early 2010 with conversations about failure to improve financial exclusion • Oct 2010: Gathering at Toynbee Hall of over 30 local organisations to define: “What would make Tower Hamlets financially inclusive?” • Produced action plan focusing on 3 themes: • Financial Literacy and Capability • Access to Debt and Money Advice Services • Access to Financial Products and Services

  5. FITH: Financial Literacy and Capability Objective 1: Target money management support to those most at risk of financial vulnerability by: • Integrating financial literacy and capability into frontline services. • Identifying and undertaking health checks on service users at key transition stages in their lives, and ensuring that appropriate support is provided.

  6. FITH: Financial Literacy and Capability Objective 2: Improve access to financial education and money management resources by: • Reviewing existing financial education provision. • Supporting residents to be trained as money mentors and financial inclusion champions • Continuing to support children and young people’s education providers to embed financial education into their services. • Improving the data management, monitoring and evaluation of financial capability support services to help inform our understanding of gaps and areas for service improvement.

  7. Taking a holistic approach • Working with services which can get close to those at risk of financial distress: • Children’s services • Schools • Youth workers • Health workers • Faith groups • Housing Options • Train them to recognise signs of financial exclusion and distress • Accurate signposting and effective support

  8. Mapping Financial Well-being Needs • MAP Tool: • Assesses a range of aspects of financial well-being including resilience • Highlights areas of risk which need support • Measures distance travelled following support • Integrating Toynbee Hall’s MAP Tool into frontline assessments e.g. • Debt advice • JCP assessments • Housing Options

  9. FITH: Financial Literacy and Capability • Mapped service provision – postcode lottery which failed to cater for immobile community • Stuck-in-a-rut provision of provider-led one-off sessions with no evidence of impact • We went out and asked people: • What’s messing up your money? • What would you like to know? • How/where/when would you like to learn it? • What else does it need to do for you?

  10. FITH: Community Money Mentors • Led to 60-hour OCN Entry Level 3 course • Run over 12 weeks across the borough: • In locations where students already go • Students can start late and finish in the next term • Classes have bilingual teachers • Covers all the basics of household money management, as well as the internet and interpersonal communication skills • Classroom and fieldwork learning: supermarkets, money walks, internet comparison shopping • Evaluated using the MAP Tool

  11. FITH: Community Money Mentors • 290 graduates in 2 years • 82 % of participants reported increased and/or improved practices around saving. • 77 % of participants reported increased money management abilities and/or budgeting practice. • 51% of participants reported increased social networks and/or a greater ability to talk about money. • 95% of participants experienced improved wellbeing in at least one of these areas.

  12. Money Mentors have the confidence to: • Return to education • Start up a micro-enterprise • Return to work • Identify and ask for further training needs to move closer to employment • Change the household conversation and behaviour around money

  13. Improving Access to Debt and Money Advice Services Objective 1: Ensure that residents, particularly vulnerable residents, understand and are • supported to access money management and debt advice services by: • providing holistic and proactive approaches to money and debt advice and information for vulnerable households.

  14. Improving Access to Debt and Money Advice Services Objective 2: Work with creditors to promote early identification and intervention for residents with debt or money management problems by: • better co-ordinating and sharing information on debt and money advice services in the borough; and • reviewing the Council’s corporate debt policy.

  15. Access to Debt and Money Advice Services • 1-1 money guidance available across the borough • Workshops for specific groups at risk e.g. People on Housing Register, unemployed • Effective partnership across LBTH (THCAN) • Share data, knowledge and resources • Cross-refer to smooth demand against supply • Single borough-wide information leaflets • Progress still needed on corporate debt strategy

  16. Access to Financial Products and Services Objective 1: Work in partnership with the financial services industry to increase access to suitable financial products and services for low income households by: • promoting Credit Unions and other basic banking and transactional accounts; • improving availability of free ATMs in the borough; and • ensuring that residents have the knowledge and confidence to use financial products effectively.

  17. Access to Financial Products and Services Objective 2: Widen access to and availability of affordable credit for people on low incomes by: • improving awareness of high costs of different types of credit and promoting access to affordable credit; and • raising awareness of illegal money lending including support available for victims.

  18. Access to Financial Products and Services • Working with Barclays to design and test signposting scheme in branches • Working with LINK to identify and tackle detriment caused by fee-charging ATMs • Supporting London Community Credit Union through: • Developing CU Champions • Developing new products (budget accounts and short-term loans) • Exploring how to extend access

  19. Building the wider FITH environment • Analysed where the environment is creating additional financial stress: • Social housing: lettings process, range of policies • Private rented housing: rents, lack of tenure • Fuel poverty: high use of pre-payment meters • Financial services: lack of mainstream services • Unemployment: mismatch to skills • Welfare reform • High cost of living

  20. Creating financially inclusive services • Created FIHCO: Financial Inclusion Health Check for Organisations • Systems-thinking approach to identifying what impact the organisation – or interaction between organisations – has on the service users’ financial health • Currently working our way through the social housing and employability sectors • Creates action plan with follow support and training • Seeing results as providers begin to change the way they design and deliver services e.g. Integrating financial health checks into lettings process

  21. What Works? • A shared vision: FITH is a vision statement, not a project name – it keeps us focused and energised • Money Mentors: Impact is beyond our expectations • FIHCO: Rigorous analysis can lead to significant shifts in organisational culture and thus impact • Measurement: the MAP tool is our most effective data tool – the evidence it provides helps us support individuals and improve our programmes • Flexibility: New partners join all the time as they hear the message – we change and grow to accommodate them – requires agile thinking and acting

  22. Key Challenges? • Changing policy: It’s hard to keep up and plan timely and effective interventions • Funding cuts: We have to think creatively to keep services running e.g. Volunteer benefit advisers • Staff changes: FITH’s vision has to be restated continuously to keep the partnership focus • Measurement: Although we have the MAP tool, it’s still hard to measure real change due to the complexity of the work • A tough economic environment: How much can we really change things for people living in austerity?

  23. Scaling Up • FIHCO: Supporting a range of providers around the country to identify and tackle where they undermine resilience in the way they do business • Money Mentors: Train the Trainer model piloted in Brighton with first graduates successfully trained • Supporting Brighton and Hove City Council to develop their own model drawing on FITH • Developing sets of learning for service delivery kitemarks to facilitate financial well-being and resilience

  24. More Information • www.fith.org.uk – access for all organisations and residents to resources and information • www.towerhamlets.gov.uk – Financial Inclusion Strategy; Fairness Commission briefings • www.toynbeehall.org.uk – FIHCO, MAP and FI training and resources

  25. Thank you Sian Williams Sian.williams@toynbeehall.org.uk 020 7392 2941

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