Surviving the Wilderness

Following on from the June 2020 NEA policy paper “The Gathering Storm: Utility Debt and Covid-19”, this paper provides an evidence synthesis of personal debt, both prior and post the Covid-19 outbreak, with a focus on the shift from consumer debt, such as loans and credit cards, to household debts, such as arrears with utility providers, offering a comparison of known debt levels in energy, water and local government. It aims to alert policy makers to the consequences of negative budgets and problem debt, proposing a definition of ‘severe indebtedness’ for utilities to consider in their debt management practices, whilst identifying further areas of best practice which can be replicated across different sectors. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations which can be applied across all sectors to mitigate the impacts of personal debt and arrears following the pandemic and avoid low-income and vulnerable householders falling deeper into financial difficulty.

Surviving the Wilderness: The landscape of personal debt in the UK