CR News and Case Studies

Citizens Advice and Prudential publish Capital Gains, a report on the community-based financial literacy programme

22 Jul 2005

Capital Gains is a report on the community-based programme ‘Financial Skills for Life’ undertaken by Citizens Advice and sponsored by Prudential. Financial Skills for Life has enabled nine face-to-face personal finance education projects to test how best to deliver financial education to hard-to-reach and financially excluded groups.

The projects have reached a range of different groups including young adults and people in retirement, and are taking place in North Liverpool, Islington, Bracknell, Northumberland, Fenland, Powys, Bradford, Walsall and Wigan.

Capital Gains describes the experiences and lessons learnt so far, including:

• the need to build on existing routes into hard to reach communities, for example through partnerships with local health organisations (Northumberland) and family resource centres (Wigan);
• the effectiveness of using a variety of methods to reach people living in isolated areas, for example through local radio (Powys); and,
• the importance of using real life examples such as comparing the cost of a TV bought for cash vs. the hire-purchase price (North Liverpool), and materials such as catalogues and bank statements.

An external independent evaluation of the nine projects is underway and a project report for the current three-year pilot, which comes to an end in December 2005, will be published in January 2006. On the basis of this analysis, Citizens Advice and Prudential will begin planning the next three-year stage of the Financial Skills for Life Programme, which aims to further embed financial capability work into the work of the Citizens Advice Service in England and Wales.

If you would like further information, or copies of the report, please either email Beth Bell, beth.bell@citizensadvice.org.uk or phone on 0115 934 8735.

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