Wealth & assets

Submission: Thoresen Review consultation response

Patrick Stevens
Patrick Stevens

This briefing sets out the Foundation’s response to the Thoresen Review’s ‘Call for Evidence’.

Key points

  • The Thoresen Review Team must, through the review process, clarify and communicate how generic financial advice works in practice
  • The Review Team must develop the model of a new generic financial advice service which delivers advice primarily over the telephone, but with an accompanying website and limited face to face provision
  • The new service should be universal, but should target low to median income groups – the existing infrastructure, in the form of the commercial and third sectors, does not have the capacity or the appropriate brand to deliver such a generic financial advice service
  • The marketing and branding of a new service are crucial and need to be considered with care – using intermediaries in the community and capitalising on trust relationships with GPs, youth workers and other professionals to act as referees to the service will be effective in targeting hard to reach groups and promoting a sense of trust and impartiality
  • A new service should have as its main objective making consumers act on advice and change their behaviour – a generic advice service needs to be overseen by a new independent body, which has the wider remit of overseeing, coordinating and championing financial capability more generally
  • A generic financial advice service should be funded jointly by the Government and the financial services industry, as two stakeholders with a direct interest in promoting the financial capability of the UK population

Further reading

Ineffective Savings Accounts
·
Molly Broome
In too deep?
The impact of the cost of living crisis on household debt
·
Felicia Odamtten, Simon Pittaway
Precautionary tales
Tackling the problem of low saving among UK households
·
Molly Broome, Ian Mulheirn, Simon Pittaway
Patrick Stevens
Patrick Stevens Trustee