Longitudinal Study on Debt Advice

Concepts

• research services
• longitudinal study
• long-term impact of debt advice
• impact of debt advice
• need of debt advice
• quantitative pilot
• large-scale
• test of the key parameters
• previous surveys
• encouraging results

Location

London

Description

MaPS published the results from a two-year quantitative pilot longitudinal study (PLS) of debt advice in October 2022. The pilot has demonstrated solid evidence that doing a large-scale longitudinal study successfully is feasible and likely to produce valuable insight. The reports, including pilot methodology and test of the key parameters, can be found at this link Understanding the long-term impact of debt advice. Given the encouraging results, MaPS wants to undertake a two-phase quantitative longitudinal study to measure the impact of debt advice on client outcomes. The design includes a randomised encouragement component by using a stratified random process to create a counterfactual group, where a treatment group is encouraged to seek debt advice, and a control group is not. There are two main changes from the PLS. 1) The criteria used by MaPS to define people in need of debt advice have changed. From previous surveys, we estimate that the old and new definitions of people in need of advice will provide a similar eligibility rate but that will be tested in the first phase of the study. 2) We have a new design and structure to be used for the randomise encouragement component. Also, to be tested and improved in the development phase.

Total Quantity or Scope

Longitudinal study on debt advice clients High-level objectives are the following: Phase 1 • to successfully run the developing phase, recruit participants online in need of debt advice; • create the experimental allocation (using a stratified random process); • evaluate the encouragement design aimed at creating a robust counterfactual group; and • calibrate the key parameters (such as eligibility, attrition and response rate) for the large scale longitudinal. Phase 2 • to successfully run a large-scale randomised encouragement design longitudinal study; • create the experimental allocation (using a stratified random process); • successfully implement the encouragement design; • to keep comparable and sizeable treatment and control groups during the duration of the project over four waves; and • to measure the impact of debt advice on improving the outcomes of people. Insight: • to understand the causality of debt advice has with debt and wider financial well-being indicators within the debt journey over the short, medium and long term. This includes analysing complex journeys into and out of debt over time and the causes; • to identify the immediate effects of receiving debt advice, the sustainability of the solutions and the long-term consequences of clients’ decisions; and • to identify what works and what doesn't work to increase motivation for advice seeking behaviour, which is one of the most challenging objectives in the debt advice sector.

CPV Codes

• 73110000 - Research services

Indicators

• Bids should cover the whole contract.
• Professional qualifications are sought.

Other Information

MaPS will facilitate a session to engage interested bidders on this workstream. This will take place on 22nd February 2023 over MS Teams. To register your interest to attend this market engagement session please send an email to : commercial@maps.org.uk This is not a tender, this is a prior information notice for an upcoming opportunity. Timescales MaPS expects the ITT to be published in March with work to begin in May. Specific timings will be published alongside the ITT documents. Supplier engagement session … Questions for potential bidders Our ITT documents will set out the requirement in more detail. To help us gauge interest, please answer the following questions by 15th February 2023 to this email commercial@maps.org.uk (quoting Longitudinal research project as a reference). 1. Do you feel you have the capability to deliver the research area and want to bid for it? Yes / No 2. Do you have any concerns about recruiting the sample size needed to successfully deliver the objectives of this study? (PSL estimates a recruited sample of c. 3,500 for phase 1 and c. 6,000 for phase 2) Yes / No 3. If you have any concerns, what would help? 4. Capacity: would you be able to commit the resources needed to work in this research area for over 5 years and complete it by the end of March 2028? Yes / No 5. MaPS is seeking to get advice from a working group of stakeholders and academics providing expert advice during the project. Do you have any concerns about this type of collaborative approach? Yes / No 6. If you have any concerns, what would help?