Celebrating financial capability in Scotland

Last night stakeholders and guests at the Scottish Parliament celebrated financial capability work taking place across Scotland, as part of UK "Financial Capability Week".

The event was hosted by Ayrshire MSP, Ruth Maguire, and heard from Yvonne MacDermid, Chair of the Scottish Financial Capability Partnership, Govan Law Centre's Mike Dailly, Alison Hardie of Young Scot, Alison Watson of Shelter Scotland, Simon Watson of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Jonathan Baxter, Head Teacher and pupils from Flora Stevenson Primary School

As part of #TalkMoneyScotland week, Govan Law Centre will be providing a free financial capability and money advice session at Homes for Good, 97 Main Street in Glasgow’s Bridgeton this Thursday 16 November 2017 from 10am to 3pm. No appointment is necessary.

GLC's Principal Solicitor Mike Dailly said: "Good money skills are always key to resolving financial challenges and difficulties. But most importantly they are essential as a preventative tool: to avoid being scammed, fleeced, being hit with excessive fees and charges, borrowing at uncompetitive rates, buying financial products you don’t need or aren’t suitable for you, or ultimately just getting a bad deal as a consumer".

"Key life events – for good or for bad – will affect all of us throughout our life and having some financial resilience and support can make an unbelievable difference in a crisis. Knowledge truly is power, and we are a point in time where we can make financial capability skills and knowledge freely and instantly accessible to consumers when they need it if we utlise new opportunities next year from Opening Banking and the new Payment Services Directive".

Mike's talk is available here (opens as a PDF).

Celebrating financial capability in Scotland

Govan Law Centre's new 'Financial Health Reports' for tenants

The Private Rented Tenants Team at Govan Law Centre, is now offering its clients Financial Health Reports. 

The Team was set up in September 2016 and provides a comprehensive, unique and dedicated service to Tenants of Private landlords in Glasgow.  Along with providing vulnerable tenants with their statutory rights and tackling unmet needs the project has a focus on Financial Inclusion and Financial Capability. 

We have developed the Financial Health Report (click here for an example) as a way to identify and tackle the complex mix of factors that affect tenancy sustainment and create barriers to financial stability. 

The reports will provide tenants with:

·         a breakdown of their income by source and an analysis of their expenditure;

·         an insight into their household fuel use and an indication of whether they are suffering fuel poverty;

·         an analysis of their debts and monthly debt payments as a percentage of their net monthly income;

The reports will provide our clients with an insight into their own financial circumstances, with recommendations on how they can maximise their finances and minimise their expenditure.  It will enable clients to target those areas of expenditures that can produce real savings for them and recommend financial targets they should aim for to create more financially healthier lifestyles.    Key to the success of our work with vulnerable tenants is to provide a holistic model of support which provides easy to understand, practicable and realistic solutions.

Our Financial Health reports analysis helps us to understand the types of issues that private rented sector tenants are struggling with and discover trends, such a higher vulnerability to fuel poverty.   Already, our findings show there are a higher number of our clients who are suffering from fuel poverty.   This means that they are paying more than 10% of their disposable income on their household fuel.   The factors influencing this are usually low income, increased fuel costs, poor insulation, the home not fully wind/watertight and low energy efficiency.   

The Private Rented Tenants Team are offering these new personalised Financial Health Reports to all our clients.    It provides an immediate response to problems private renters experience with managing their finances, and in doing this work we aim to help our clients with; reducing rent arrears, prevent homelessness, improve living conditions, maximise income and achieve financial stability.  

The Team also provides advice to private sector tenants on all other housing related issues, such as rent arrears, dampness, court action, overcrowding, disrepair, benefit entitlements,  appeals and sanctions.

Govan Law Centre’s assertive outreach model helps us engage and connect with private tenants at our city-wide outreach hub’s.    A list of the times and place where advice can be obtained from us, is available here along with the details of how to get an appointment for our specialist advice.

Govan Law Centre's new 'Financial Health Reports' for tenants