Hi Payback.

As promised, your points have been re-added.

I think it's a really interesting question/point and would love to hear what people think about it.

I do feel it is a bit insulting. It seems to me that the majority of people we see are insolvent because of a change in circumstances (loss of job, divorce, illness etc) not because of recklessness.

I think it should be voluntary

I don't think this proposal will serve any purpose other than add an extra cost to a PTD. I believe in my simplistic view there are two types of people in PTD's. firstly, those who fell into debt by no real fault of their own due to a change in their circumstances. Secondly, those that recklessly ran up debt, lived beyond their means and had no intention of paying it off.

For those in the first group, I think the whole process of applying, going through and completeing a PTD would be enough of an ordeal. To force them into a financial skills course would be a bit unfair and insulting. For those in the second group, a course would be a total waste of time. They enjoy running up debt, buying luxury items knowing a PTD is their ticket out a course would not change their mind. The other proposal that recent debt is not included would be more of a wake up call to them.

I know for sure , since entering my trust deed i have
Became better with money and i for one will not be getting
Into debt again , u learn by your mistakes 🙂

I agree with everything which has been said so far.

But, call it the devil's advocate point of view if you like, you can't simply split people into two categories - the "in debt due to a change in circumstances" and the "in debt due to recklessness".

There are a lot of people who are "in debt" and "who are living beyond their means", but who are managing to make the minimum payments (or more) towards their debts.

We don't think of them as "insolvent". But, if you added up their assets and their liabilities, "apparent insolvency" might be the diagnosis.

It might be that "a change in circumstances" is the trigger for someone declaring that they are insolvent - either by entering a trust deed, or by applying for bankruptcy. That doesn't necessarily mean that the debt wasn't run up due to recklessness.

Personally, I wouldn't rule out the idea of a financial skills course for people who have been through insolvency.

We need to remember that this forum doesn't peddle the line "write off your debts in three years". Many other organisations do - online, on telly and in the press.

So, how representative are those who post here? And, on the other hand, how many people come onto any forum if they have actually managed to "write off their debts in three years"?

How many people sign a trust deed without having a clue what it is, what it means, and what the long term implications are? (Present company excepted). We've seen examples of that on this forum.

From that point of view alone, I think that any kind of financial education is a good idea.

Hi candlewick.

I think our members and visitors might be quite representative of those that have chosen to use trust deeds and other measures to deal with debt. Some members have taken much time and effort to work out exactly what they're signing up to by asking many questions in the forum and reading about the situations other people have experienced. Other members have come to the site specifically because things haven't worked out as they expected with their trust deeds, perhaps because they were fed the "easily and affordably write off your debts in three years" line when they first looked for advice.

When my colleague spoke with eight members recently (as part of the design of our survey) this question about financial education drew some pretty strong responses, both positive and negative.

As for the actual survey results on the two questions we asked about this... they'll follow soon!

There will never be a perfect system, but in my opinion, most people who have been in a trust deed, are pretty good at budgeting by the end of it. The idea of not discharging people until they have undertaken a financial education course is demeaning.

I think it would be a positive thing to offer financial skills education or training, in general terms.

There are large numbers who don't understand debt, money creation and compound interest, arguably key concepts. There are those who don't see the need to know and have never /will never budget.

I am not really confident in who would be deemed fit to deliver the education, assess the degree of learning or even decide the content.

I don't see the group of users of insolvency measures as easily split into the 2 camps described by AlphaB.

To be honest the time for financial skills training is much much earlier, certainly starting in early secondary school and being reinforced from there on. To make this have any chance of working we would have to radically change our consumer based society
Being cynical it would not be in the interests of the big financial institutions to have a population who are financially aware. They are quite willing to drop a few percent on defaulting loans but when they can get a return of 25% plus on credit cards etc it's a small price for them to pay. Ideally for them we would all be up to all our limits and making minimum payments all the time.
Both my daughters are very wary of any form of credit and are determined to live within their means despite the must have now society that we live in.

I agree on track, but still with reservations around who is qualified to teach our kids. A school initiative recently had a staff member from RBS give a talk.

Without getting too political, her talk was full of ways to perpetuate what we have now (Is that really working?)and I spent some time discussing alternative views on what was said with my kids.

I can see the benefit of financial education in schools but to prevent discharge until you have attended classes is maybe a step too far.

Paul

I totally agree, compulsory reeducation sounds a bit Orwellian doesn't it, it would be carried out no doubt by a private contractor and funded by a levy on the trust deed bankruptcy so even less payout to the creditors = more resistance to getting protected status or longer terms. For sure the government or the banks won't pay for it.
I suppose we all learn lessons by experience and I would guess that the majority of people completing a trust deed or sequestration will have learned a hard lesson on economics.