Public Sector Toolkits
The Vulnerability, Economic Abuse and Communications Toolkits have been designed to help public sector creditors identify and support their vulnerable customers experiencing a range of difficulties. They may also be useful to other organisations and businesses.
Documents
Details
The Vulnerability, Economic Abuse and Communications Toolkits have been designed to help public sector creditors identify and support their vulnerable customers experiencing a range of difficulties. They may also be useful to other organisations and businesses.
These have been collaboratively developed by the government’s Debt Fairness Group, a partnership between central and local government, the debt advice sector, and the debt collection industry. The Government Debt Management Functional Centre established the Fairness Group in 2016, to recommend evidence based improvements to government’s debt management practices.
The Debt Management Vulnerability Toolkit is designed to help public sector creditors support their vulnerable customers. It provides front line staff with best-practice tools to identify and assist people facing physical and mental challenges, so recovery can focus on those who are deliberately trying to avoid repaying their debts.
The Economic Abuse Toolkit aims to help public sector creditors understand, identify and support people who may have experienced or may be experiencing economic abuse: whether economic abuse caused the debts; made it more difficult for individuals to repay them; or is experienced by a member of staff. Noticing the signs and offering consistent, effective support can have a large impact on someone’s safety as well as their economic stability. The primary audience of this toolkit are policymakers and service managers that design processes to support victim-survivors of economic abuse, for whom the toolkit provides recommendations - 6 steps to create a supportive culture and 4 ways to support a victim-survivor after disclosure - that will help them respond to victim-survivors most supportively.
The interactive version of the toolkit is a tool for those handling calls to help identify cases of economic abuse, whether in the public sector or outside. Those using the interactive guidance should be trained in handling cases of economic abuse sensitively before doing so.
The Communications Toolkit is published to help public sector bodies recovering debt to understand and implement effective debt communications. Effective communication can build trust and provide reassurance, encouraging people in need to seek support and facilitating debt repayment from those who can. The toolkit is the first comprehensive guide on debt communications for government and will provide a single point of access to the latest research in the sector.
Updates to this page
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The Economic Abuse Toolkit has been updated.
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The page has been updated to include the Debt Management Communications Toolkit.
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Added the document: Economic Abuse Toolkit (Interactive)
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Updated with the latest toolkit versions: Debt Management Vulnerability Toolkit for service and policy managers V2 Debt Management Vulnerability Toolkit for frontline debt management staff V2
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First published.