News Articles
The following news articles are not written or endorsed by Torbay Advice Network but are provided for informative and self-help purposes.
New articles are uploaded on a regular basis
Hidden Debt
Hidden debt, hidden risks: Fixing the two-tier system for heat network consumers with bundled charges
There’s a two-tier system of protections for people who pay for their heating within rent or service charges. This is called ‘bundling’ or ‘bundled charging’. It affects a third of heat network consumers. Today, that’s more than 360,000 people. But, by 2050, bundled charges could affect 1.2 million people if the sector grows as planned and nothing is done to fix the two-tier system and improve heat network infrastructure.
Bundling puts people at risk of losing their home if they fall behind on their bills. It creates double standards in billing and back-billing and a serious loophole in fair pricing rules. Bundling can make it harder to hold suppliers accountable too.
Young People in Work
Nearly one million young people aged 16 to 24 in the United Kingdom are not in education, employment or training. One in 8 young people. And rising. Behind the statistics lie individual lives: aspirations thwarted, opportunities lost, futures placed on hold.
Numbers on that scale should command national attention in their own right. Too often they haven’t. The NEET rate has barely crept below 10% in 25 years. What should have been treated as an urgent national crisis has been absorbed into the background noise of public life.
That tolerance is no longer acceptable.
This Review exists because today Britain faces a generational fault line. Britain not only has a chronic problem. It is one that is getting worse not better. It is no longer simply a question of temporary youth unemployment. Today the deeper problem is youth detachment from the labour market. Nearly 60% of young people who are NEET now are economically inactive. They are not just out of work. They are not looking for work.
Shockingly, 6 in 10 young people who are NEET today have never had a job, up from 4 in 10 in 2005. At the very point when they should be starting adult life, gaining confidence, building skills, learning the habits of work and taking their first steps towards independence, too many are becoming detached from education and employment altogether. We are at risk of a lost generation.
The economic insecurity trap
Economic insecurity shapes the lives of millions of people in Britain. Many people, including those on higher incomes as well as those in poverty, worry about whether they could cope with rising bills, losing their job or meeting an unexpected expense. These concerns are acute and widespread given the prolonged period of rising living costs, weak economic growth and stagnating household incomes.
Yet, while the consequences of economic insecurity for well-being and political attitudes are increasingly recognised, we still know relatively little about why it persists. Policy-makers cannot find solutions without understanding its drivers: how people could feel they really have some “breathing space”, in the words of the new Prime Minister, through greater financial resilience.
This report argues that feelings of economic insecurity are not simply the result of financial hardship. It can also become a self-reinforcing process through which financial vulnerability becomes increasingly difficult to escape. Using a unique panel study that followed the same individuals through 3 large representative surveys between March 2024 and April 2025, we show how changes in people's financial circumstances shape their sense of economic security and, in turn, how economic insecurity influences subsequent financial outcomes. We describe this dynamic as the ‘economic insecurity trap’.
Women and the UK Housing Crisis
Housing is central to people’s daily lives and future life chances. It shapes living standards, health, access to work, education and relationships. Housing costs are also a major driver of poverty and inequality. Yet the UK’s housing system is failing many households. Finding secure, affordable and decent housing has become increasingly difficult, particularly for people on lower incomes, younger households and those facing multiple forms of disadvantage.
Housing is also a gender issue. Women are more likely than men to rely on social housing, housing benefit, homelessness services and temporary accommodation. They have lower average incomes and wealth, spend more time undertaking unpaid care, and face higher levels of housing insecurity. These inequalities reflect broader gender inequalities in income, employment and caring responsibilities, but they are also reinforced by the way the housing system operates.
While there are significant differences within and between genders, this briefing finds that women experience distinct disadvantages across the housing system. These inequalities intersect with race, disability, migration status, age and household type, leaving some groups of women facing particularly acute housing insecurity.
Constituency Benefit Data
The standard international measure of unemployment as defined by the International Labour Organisation includes everyone looking for and available for work (whether or not they are claiming benefits) and is measured using surveys. Small numbers of survey respondents at the local level mean estimates are volatile and not a reliable guide to trends.
The claimant count is the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance plus people claiming Universal Credit who are required to seek work.
There were 1.66 million claimants in July 2026, which was 11,000 less than the month before and 3,300 less than in July 2025.
Improving terminally ill people’s access to Special Rules
Marie Curie’s Dying in Poverty report reveals the ‘double burden’ of income loss and increased costs brought on by a terminal illness.
This can leave those who were previously comfortably-off struggling to make ends meet.
It can also push those who were already on lower incomes or struggling to get by below the poverty line. For more than one in six people who died in the UK in 2024, the last period of life was marked by financial difficulty.
This means many people with a terminal illness need support from the social security system, often for the first time. Benefits make up around half of the income of working-age households including someone in the last year of life, rising to almost three-quarters among households in poverty.
When someone is terminally ill, it’s especially pressing that they get social security support as quickly as possible to meet the often rapid and significant income drop experienced after a terminal illness diagnosis. The Special Rules for End of Life is a vital route to helping achieve that. It enables individuals with a progressive, life-limiting illness to access key welfare benefits more quickly without the need for medical assessments, and to get the highest rate of some benefits.
However, the Special Rules route is currently failing to protect too many people with a terminal illness.
What works: Lessons from the frontline of digital support & advice services
Government and essential services have fundamentally changed. More and more services have gone digital, meaning that the problems people face often require digital support. But between 14 and 22 million people in the UK face one or more barriers to digital services.
In response, Citizens Advice have set up digital support services, both as part of our daily work, and as dedicated outreach and support. This report summarises 5 key things we’ve learned about providing effective digital support:
Help people with the tasks they want to do, instead of offering ‘digital skills’
Empower people to do tasks themselves.
Run outreach services to meet people where they are
Build trust over time with face to face support
Offer digital support side by side with other services, such as advice.
These lessons are drawn from a combination of 4 local service visits, adviser surveys, interviews and focus groups and 800 evidence forms relating to cases where clients faced digital exclusion issues.
Citizens Advance
A state alternative to the Bank of Mum and Dad
Britain is a place where wealth matters. Most 18-40 year olds who do not own their home think that the dream of homeownership is dead for many young people (70%).
The number of over indebted Brits is over 10 million, up from 7.7 million in 2017, and the burden of student debt has risen up the news agenda.
Around 1 in 4 adults (23%) could not afford to pay an unexpected £850 bill if it landed on their doorstep.
A lack of personal funds is the most cited reason for people not starting a business. Financial and housing pressures are holding people back from starting a family.
Personal and family wealth levels can alter the course of people's lives. Children of wealthier parents are more likely to go to university, even when controlling for a range of personal characteristics.
Advice in GP surgeries should be part of healthcare, not an optional extra
Advice in GP surgeries reaches problems medicine cannot solve
Advice in GP surgeries should be treated as part of prevention, not as a charitable add-on. When someone’s health is being damaged by debt, insecure housing, low income or an unresolved benefit claim, medicine alone cannot remove the cause. A prescription may manage the symptoms, but accredited advice can help change the circumstances producing them.
Too often, the health system is expected to respond clinically to problems that begin socially. A patient may visit their GP because they cannot sleep, feel persistently anxious or are struggling to manage a long-term condition. Behind those symptoms may be rent arrears, a cold home, the loss of income after illness, an unsuitable disability benefit decision or the strain of caring for a relative without adequate support.
None of these problems is imaginary. None is simply a matter of “resilience”. And none can be solved by telling the patient to search online or contact another organisation when they get home.