🧵Essential Services, Essential Oversight New blog from me looking at how a focus on outcomes, rather than an ever increasing list of rules, can change the culture of regulators and businesses and place consumers at the heart of the market. https://t.co/syV0PXcxIh

📢 Very pleased to see the government's new consultation on council tax administration. This is only the start of a process - but a a big opportunity to make council tax collection fairer and bring it into line with other types of debt collection.

More on our recent work with the Behavioural Insights Team here looking at links between online design and vulnerability. Linking these ideas together is so important so we're exciting to have the next phase of this work will out soon. https://t.co/swrmEwfqOm

Great to see the ban on drip pricing kick in today. We @CitizensAdvice have been pushing for this for years as part of our work to tackle 'deceptive design' practices online. We're in the middle of some really exciting work atm in this space. https://t.co/B50For5QYo

Read more here and check out the three reports: https://t.co/Q96PYdzTvu

https://t.co/8xV6yw16tu

With essential bills shooting up today we have published three reports by @CitizensAdvice, @IPPR and @policy_practice looking at how support for low income customers can be effectively targeted and automatically delivered to those most in need. We've summarised them in 7 pics:

Everyone agrees the welfare system needs reform, and the government’s commitment to improving employment support is welcome. But reaching for a quick fix of restricting eligibility and reducing people’s incomes is not the way to make lasting change happen https://t.co/i66pM5C5fp

And this report on how the Fair Work Agency needs to be designed to tackle issues like this https://t.co/xFFPpPROWU

More on what our advisors see in this excellent report https://t.co/bpG4TwwNGQ

Another reminder of how the poor design of the care workers visa led - predictably - to exploitation. This is something our advisors see sadly all too often @CitizensAdvice. We need to see changes to the visa and an effective Fair Work Agency asap.

This is really interesting work from @mmhpi & @CitizensAdvice. The barriers to people with mental health problems contacting their telco supplier are very likely to apply to others including those on low incomes...@FairByDesign #povertypremium

We're currently looking for Senior Policy Researchers to join the Consumer & Public Services team at @CitizensAdvice. Details here ⬇️ https://t.co/DrvHQHAgXk

Last year for @CitizensAdvice we asked our Research Community about their expeirences of trying to haggle with their telecoms provider. We found that the toxic combination of a tricky process and common symptoms of mental health problems can make this nearly impossible

New research from @mmhpi & @CitizensAdvice on unequal access in the telecoms market. This is a clear example of people with mental health problems paying more for the same essential service. #povertypremium

If you want the best price for mobile or broadband you have to ring up and haggle - but not everyone is as confident or able to do this. It's time for a rethink about how this works. Our report today hopes to get this conversation started - get involved! https://t.co/GksigOpngN

Surely the film industry instinct of signing of sequels has now gone too far. Does this episode follow our plucky bank manager as he navigates the FCA's new growth agenda while considering the impact of the Consumer Duty on CDFIs? 👀 I actually might watch that 👀

I doubt I'm the only loser in this new approach and so many people are going to have the nasty surprise in April of being worse off due to this change. This was totally predictable and is why we called for a total ban on these price rises, so that fixed really means fixed. END

In the new world, the price goes up by a fixed pounds and pence amount. For my supplier it's £3.50. But that's a 14.5% rise. RPI is currently around 3.5% so with the old system my bill would rise by 7.4% - essentially half as much as the rise I'm actually going to see. (3/4)

I renewed my broadband this week. My new package costs £24/month. In April there will be a mid contract price rise. In the old world this rise would be RPI+3.9%. And that was not a good system. Most people don't know what 'RPI' means so it's not fair to include such terms. (2/4)

Ofcom's ban on inflation linked mid contract price rises is finally here. But in falling short of the full ban on these rises which we @CitizensAdvice called for, Ofcom's new system will see many customers worse off. A personal example...(1/4) https://t.co/67gyIvBt8K