Independents Andrew Smith and Midge Clayton evaluate The Thoresen Review’s prototype services for Money Guidance.

March 4th - 2008  LONDON

The final report of the Thoresen Review of Generic Financial Advice, published yesterday, detailed evaluation of the Review’s prototype services which was undertaken by experienced Independent Consultants Group members Andrew Smith and Midge Clayton.

The Thoresen Review sets out a high-level blueprint for a national money guidance service to provide people in the UK with the knowledge, understanding and confidence to make better decisions about money issues. Research for The Review confirmed that:

Consumers want a money guidance service

That such a service should offer a combination of telephone, internet and face-to-face guidance

That there were high satisfaction and advocacy ratings among the prototype service users

And that the provision of money guidance often has immediate effects on user behaviour

Otto Thoresen said:

“People have told us that they want and would act on this guidance. In research we commissioned 75 per cent of people surveyed said they would use a “national information and guidance service for personal finance issues”. Of these, over 25 per cent felt that they would be very likely to use this service. And evidence from our practical prototypes suggests that eight out of ten participants took at least one action within a week or so of using the service. Over half of these took specific action, such as buying a new product or speaking to a regulated adviser’’.

Andrew Smith comments:

‘Our evaluation lasted several months, involving a variety of qualitative and larger sample surveys with the general public, prototype users, contractors and industry observers. As independents, we were delighted to be chosen to carry out this important element of such a high profile review.’