Introducing Digital Money Coaching

1. Introducing Digital Money Coaching August 2019

2. What is Digital Money Coaching? • Digital Money Coaching is a volunteer role that has been identified as a way to help clients - who may otherwise face digital exclusion - engage with an increasingly online world. • A Digital Money Coach helps a client develop the digital skills necessary to engage with financial services and products online. This can be in a one-to-one setting, or by facilitating access to an online suite. By doing so, they can build their financial capability through using online and mobile banking; price comparison sites; energy switching sites and accessing local and national government services such as welfare benefits and the National Careers Service. • Money Coaches also provide ‘assisted digital’ client support - helping clients complete specific tasks online. This activity includes, but is not restricted to, job searches, accessing and managing online Welfare Benefit accounts, bidding on social housing and making complaints

3. Why is it needed? • Nearly 20% of the UK population – 9.5 million people - lack the basic online skills needed to send and receive email, use a search engine, browse the internet and complete online forms. • The cost of this digital exclusion has been estimated at £744 per household as people fail to get the best deals online. • Currently 18% (1.2 million people) of those in receipt of benefits have low or no digital capability, this is of particular concern with the continued rollout of Universal Credit and Help to Claim. • Citizens Advice research has shown less than half (44%) of clients have internet access in their home. A third of clients responded that they don’t have access to the internet at all (29%). • 56% of people without a bank account have low or no digital capability compared to the UK average of 79%

4. How can it benefit our clients? • 4 in 10 people say being online helps them feel less alone. For people with a disability, those online are 27% more likely than the rest of the UK to say the internet helps them feel less alone. • 5 in 10 say being online has helped them find a job and there is a £13,000 average annual income difference between those with all digital skills and those with low, or no digital skills. • 7 in 10 say digital banking helps them avoid banking fees and those with high digital capability check their finances more then three times as often and feel more in control of their money. • People with high digital capability save twice as often and more than twice as much as those with low or no digital skills.

5. The Digital Money Coaching Model Our Digital Money Coaching model is built in keeping with UK Gov’s Essential Digital Skills Framework. It aims to meet the new National Standards for Essential Digital Skills needed for work and life covering skills including: • Switching on an online device. • Use a mouse/touchscreen. • Open an internet browser. • Find the correct website. • Navigate a website internally. • Fill in an online form. • Print any results from the test. Activities are designed to be modular using the ‘Lego’ principle. Learning can be tailored to client’s individual level. This means they only complete relevant activities embedding key skills for them by embracing active learning.

6. The themes we cover Our resources are grouped into the themes called sections. Foundation Digital Skills - designed for those with little or no prior experience of using the internet. Advanced Digital Skills - designed for people with some experience of using digital devices and the internet but lacking complete digital skills. Each section starts with a pack that contains all the materials in that theme. Alternatively, these packs are broken down into their individual activities and grouped as ‘critical’, ‘important’ and ‘optional’ activities. We also provide a regularly updated resource of useful apps, websites and key digital terms.

7. Key points around Digital Money Coaching There is no need to do full 60-minute ‘sessions’. A single activity is still a valid intervention, and can take place in a much more digestible 5-10 minutes. Not all the activities require online access. Some key ones - such as keeping paperwork organised – can be carried out in a one-to-one discussion, but are still key and foundational skills. The Digital Money Coaching resources are there as guidance: if an advisor would prefer to use a different website or resource to teach something, they are always welcome to do so. The resources are not prescriptive: picking any one activity does not immediately dictate what the next one will be. Each activity comes with recommendations, but if an advisor feels that they don’t want to adhere to this, they don’t have to. The resources are designed to be brief, each topic generally consisting of a one page handout and adviser notes.

8. What happens next? Digital Money Coaching is an evolving approach towards a new volunteering role, tied in closely to financial capability and its integration with mainstream advice The resource library is provided for all local Citizens Advice and partner organisations to use. New versions of the resources will be uploaded online at regular intervals in response to continued feedback, practical testing and changes in technology. Sections will also continue to expand in size and scope on an ongoing basis. The original Digital Money Coaching Toolkit won the Unite-IT award for ‘Vulnerable groups at risk of exclusion’, a European-wide award presented to Citizens Advice in Belgrade on 24th September 2015.

9. For any further information or feedback, contact us at Financial.Skills@citizensadvice.org.uk

10. The Financial Capability and Consumer Education Team • Bas Diablos • Financial Capability Development Lead Dominic Mukwamba • Financial Capability Development Officer Mel McGinn Consumer Education Development Consultant • Abby Samuel • Financial Capability Development Officer

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