Fair Point | September 2024 | abrdn Financial Fairness Trust Newsletter

Autumnal ‘back-to-school’ vibes are strong this month; so many reports which were delayed due to the election are now seeing the light of day like that new school blazer. Our partners have a lot of ideas for how the new Labour government can improve living standards for people on low-to-middle incomes. Earlier this month the Institute for Employment Studies published their recommendations for how employment rates can be increased at a conference attended by the Minister for Employment, Alison McGovern MP. Before that, the launch of our Pensions Review in partnership with the IFS was attended by the Pensions Minister, Emma Reynolds MP (for more on that see the pensions newsletter).  In addition, Money and Mental Health Policy Institute launched their report into local authority debt collection at an event in Westminster; many attendees, including MPs, were shocked to learn that one missed monthly council tax payment means the whole year’s bill can suddenly be demanded upfront. 

The UK is experiencing its biggest contraction in the labour force since the 1980s. The Institute for Employment Studies found the UK is one of the only countries in the developed world to have seen employment fall post-pandemic: slipping from having the eighth highest employment rate in the world to fifteenth.

Citizens Advice in partnership with IPPR and Policy and Practice are fighting for suppliers and the government to ensure social tariffs are proactively offered to people who need them most. A new programme will seek to improve social tariffs across essential markets to shield those on low incomes from increasingly unaffordable utilities .

 

‘Council tax collection practices are so aggressive they’d make the banks blush’

Research published by the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, the charity founded and chaired by Martin Lewis, exposes local council debt collection practices — showing them to be far more aggressive than financial firms, and driving unacceptable harms that disproportionately affect people with mental health problems.