Stepchange: A new five year strategy for a changing debt landscape

Debt advice has always been a vital part of the financial ecosystem, but the market has been changing rapidly since the pandemic, and change has been further turbo-charged by the FCA’s Consumer Duty and the rise of new technology. Against this backdrop, StepChange Debt Charity recently unveiled its new five-year strategy – delivering practical actions on the themes that anyone who works in credit or collections needs to be considering.

With creditors in the financial services sector now operating in ways more aligned to a debt advice sector approach, today’s environment is becoming ever more conducive to achieving good outcomes for people experiencing problem debt, although fundamental pressures on household finances are more difficult to solve.

With this in mind, we’re harnessing research and insight from both our clients and our partners to try to break the cycle of problem debt for the future. We’re concentrating on an “outcomes first” approach, built on both technology and the combined expertise of our in-house team and our partners.

In practice, what this means is a big increase in our ambition and ability to co-create solutions – including bespoke initiatives with individual organisations - that really work. Success is clearly defined and jointly owned both by StepChange and our partners. Ideally, together this means we will help customers avoid problem debt if possible, rehabilitate from it effectively when it does happen, and ultimately strengthen financial resilience so that people have a more secure long-term financial future.

So far, partner feedback is telling us this approach is well-aligned to individual organisations’ strategic ambitions. Using tangible metrics to prove value, inform improvement, and identify new efficiencies, our insight-led approach is building trust and deepening collaboration. A good example is our partnership with Ovo. Together, we’re co-delivering a holistic service that doesn’t just tackle energy debt, it looks at the full picture for achieving the best client outcomes. In the initial 4 months of the pilot, 1,000 clients received energy advice, 800 clients received debt advice, and over £250k of energy debt was written off. Among these, outcomes included debt write-offs, bill support, and even emergency food vouchers – getting to the heart of people’s financial struggles beyond simply managing their energy debt.

And that’s just one example. Whether it’s helping NatWest support their business clients navigating personal and commercial debt, or enabling Chase UK to identify and engage customers earlier, our partnerships are deeply embedded in our mission. Together, we’re reducing stigma, strengthening early intervention, and supporting sustainable recovery.

Through innovative collaboration, we are already making a difference. We know we can’t solve all problems unilaterally – we still see too many clients in negative budget situations that make it harder for either us or our partners to bring to a sustainable, long-term resolution to their debt problems. But that’s why we’re also increasingly working together to challenge policy and legislation, contribute to research, and build a stronger understanding of real-world client outcomes.

Through this joint sector insight, policymakers can better understand where the gaps lie that public policy needs to fill, while together we concentrate on making sure that the things that we can do to help people escape problem debt are being done as efficiently, humanely and effectively as possible.

For more insight head to Credit Strategy’s Knowledge Hub