Debt adviser

This occupation is found in the debt advice sector. Employers range from local authorities and charities through to commercial organisations, all of whom provide free debt advice to customers.

The broad purpose of the occupation is to assess a customers full circumstances and provide suitable advice to enable the customer to best manage their debts. This advice must delivered to high quality and always in line with Financial Conduct Authority rules, guidance and principles.

Typical activities include making suitable enquiries in order to understand the customers past decisions, present difficulties and future aspirations. The Debt Adviser then assesses the holistic picture including the customer’s income and expenditure, family composition, debt commitments, and any factors affecting well-being, vulnerabilities or health; which they analyse in the round to create a customer budget and an accurate customer financial statement. They handle confidential and sensitive information, providing the customer with information about all available suitable solutions, which can range from budgeting advice through to formal insolvency solutions.Many solutions are free to access but some solutions may come at a cost. Debt Advisers must have a comprehensive awareness of all potential debt solutions in order to carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of all available options with each customers individual circumstances. This can often include solutions that are not available through the Debt Advisers own organisation and will therefore mean sign-posting the customer to another organisation. The debt advice assessment typically happens at least twice in the customer journey; at the point of initial advice and then later at an annual review, however Debt Advisers will sometimes see customers with on-going complex circumstances much more frequently.

In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with mainly customers and/or their advocates – with the right consent - and creditors. In some organisations, the Debt Adviser will be responsible for customer casework from start to completion, in other organisations the Debt Adviser may work as part of a larger team responsible for casework and may therefore specialise in certain aspects of debt advice.

An employee in this occupation will be responsible for supporting customers in financial difficulty, many of whom will have multi-complex vulnerabilities. Such support is often provided against a challenging back-drop; for instance, many customers may feel there is a stigma when talking generally about their own money, or may find it hard to talk about their personal relationships even when these are affecting their debts.

Debt Advisers have a responsibility therefore to approach debt advice in a non-judgemental, supportive way, build and maintain a customer relationship, encouraging openness but showing resilience where necessary in order to help the customer to find a suitable solution; this can mean being persuasive, for instance encouraging a customer to maximise their income through a positive change in lifestyle, but also pointing out any associated risks. To achieve these aims the Debt Adviser must carefully manage their own workload; balancing customer interaction with regulatory requirements and keeping accurate and compliant records at all times. They may be liaising with creditors, government agencies or other stakeholders in order to maximise income, reduce outgoings or arrange further customer support mechanisms, and will adopt the best possible and appropriate stance in order to achieve the desired outcome for the customer. A Debt Adviser will normally work on a one to one basis with their customer, and will have considerable accountability for the advice they give, however they would also be typically supervised by a senior person (who could be, but is not always, a more experienced Debt Adviser themselves) who will be the point of escalation for complex customer cases.