Connection to advice. Anytime, anywhere.
Angels Connect is being hosted and incubated by the Liverpool based charity, St Andrew’s Community Network. The Network has worked over the last 20 years to resource community organisations to design out poverty in three ways:
- Through Building Financial Resilience via the provision of community based debt and welfare benefits advice
- Building Food Security through the hosting of North Liverpool foodbank, which distributes across 9 sites in the north of the city, and resourcing a network of 8 community pantries
- Building Sustainable Communities principally via asset based community development endeavours within our community food spaces
Our 16 staff and 350+ volunteers work tirelessly alongside communities, week in – week out in the hope that one day we will exist in a time when hope and opportunities are freely available to all.
Our mission
As part of our mission to design out poverty in the communities we support, we endeavour to eliminate the occurrence of financial crises that individuals in communities face. These crises are multi-faceted which requires us, as an organisation, to consider how we play our part in influencing wider systemic change. Which is why we recently hosted the Angels Connect launch event in parliament, and why we’ve built strong connections with policy influencers and makers.

However, our core purpose is to address some of the causes of crisis, support long term prevention and recovery to ensure individuals know where crisis support is available. It’s that bit that underpins our work to develop the Money Angels initiative and the Angels Connect platform. I hope that the potential to connect people to support when they need it most in an effective and sustainable way will resonate with you as you read on.
As an organisation we have a strong reputation in the North West and beyond for helping people build financial resilience through the equipping, enabling, and then empowering of community members, to provide the steppingstones towards the technical support that is provided via debt and welfare benefits advice support services.
The Challenges
Part of the make-up of our host organisation includes the delivery of that type of service, it’s the part of the charity’s work that has been operational for the longest period of time, and is the bit that see’s significant impact when lives are dramatically changed as a direct result of the work teams of advisors are engaged in.
When I say I long for a time when organisations like ours are no longer needed, I genuinely mean it. However, our team has worked skilfully to support increasing numbers of people year-on-year, and in both our debt and welfare benefits advice spaces there has been increasing complexity in the cases that the team are working alongside. Our data and coal face experience shows an increasing need for support to navigate the welfare benefits system, and to find freedom from debt.
If I wanted to leave a policy ask pinned to this page, it would be to recognise the value (both economic and social) of organisations that operate in the advice space.

The end for the need of crisis support, like foodbanks for example, lies in part with the opportunity for people to build financial resilience as they maximise their income through welfare benefits, by managing their debts, becoming debt free and where possible and appropriate, through being part of a jobs market that universally pays a real living wage. Our advisors work alongside people to achieve this ambition, but we are acutely aware of some systemic challenges and want to be part of bringing resolution to them.
Earlier this year, Policy in Practice estimated that £22.7billion in income-related benefits and social tariffs go unclaimed in the UK each year. An estimated 8 million people in the UK could be missing out on an average of £2,700 a year in benefits. The £22.7 billion figure should likely be higher as it doesn’t include disability benefits and discretionary support. At a local level across the UK, this figure includes more than £5bn in unclaimed benefits that are locally administered including £3.4bn in unclaimed council tax support.
If I was to pin a secondary policy related reflection here, I would suggest that our experience has shown that a high volume of individuals find themselves struggling to navigate the welfare system and this is contributing to the high level of those eligible not accessing their benefits or having to engage with debt advice because, for example, the switch to universal credit for those receiving tax credits has resulted in things like historic overpayments being uncovered leading to debt.
When I talk to our team about how they see the next 6 – 18 months panning out, they tell me that they anticipate the demand for the support they offer will significantly increase as people are migrated over to Universal Credit (UC). The headline challenges that this has already presented include: a deficit in the digital literacy required to make the UC claims, the very real prospect of individuals falling into debt while they are awaiting their first UC payment, and for individuals whose complex circumstances mean they can’t engage with the system changes – their benefits will simply stop if they do not take the steps required of them. The need is ever pressing, and with the already mentioned squeeze on advice budgets the need to develop a response that not only mitigates the already present capacity challenge has been acute.

This all might seem a bit doom and gloom, I really wanted to lean into what I sense is a shared passion to make the system work for those who need it most – but also take some moments to unpack our innovation around the capacity challenge that we think absolutely chimes with a shared interest amongst many, around connecting the power of place to our ambition to design out poverty.
Our approach balances a desire to promote holism – connecting the individual not just to a service provision, but to a community response that will see them supported to a position where their financial status is more secure.
Our Model
Here’s the promised detail around our approach that has been honed for over 18 months now. The model I want to walk you through is steeped in our organisations 21 years’ experience in developing a locally rooted model for our money advice service.
At the heart of the Angels Connect model is access to free, impartial, relational face-to-face money advice, supported by community members who are equipped, enabled, and empowered to support the process from identifying need, to the connection with the technical support available to bring about change. This aspect of trusted, locally rooted people providing support to those around them is a key distinctive of our approach.
Money Angels are community members in any setting who are trained to have guided, intentional conversations in community spaces with those identified as in need of support, with then the resource to connect directly to the technical support within an advice service (debt and benefits advisors).

We have developed an app and web-based platform that includes: bitesize training programme for our Money Angels which comprises of a 30minute video, this is followed by the requirement to complete a short T/F quiz, a 100% score provides access to a regularly updated resources portal (with a commitment to the annual renewal of training), a social network, and a referral app that can be adapted to suit the needs of the service that will receive Money Angels referrals. This has all been produced to a standard that we have built on our outstanding reputation for over the last 21 years, has been Quality Assured and has been externally tested by FI partners.
Put simply anyone, even you reader, could become a Money Angel and be resourced to provide specified guidance which connects people to specialist support via a debt or welfare benefits adviser.
The core of the training that Money Angels engage with focuses on 16 themes that include:
1) An overview of the benefits system
2) Why someone might need benefits advice
3) Benefit categories
4) What UC is
5) Whether someone should claim UC
6) Detail around Sanctions
7) Detail around appealing decisions
8) Trigger questions to ask individuals both from a benefits and debt point of view
9) What individuals may need to provide ahead of a benefit check
10) An overview of debt
11) Some signs and symptoms to look out for
12) Some details around impact and emotions
13) Detail around types of debt and their importance
14) Some information around the advice process
15) Key safeguarding information
16) Key privacy information




You will have noticed that this post focusses heavily on the welfare benefits advice part of our ambition to build financial resilience. This is because we know that when at crisis point, often the ‘underlying issue’ is not addressed, and this can cause people to need similar support again in the future. We’ve wanted to do more to stop people reaching crisis point again and this involves building deeper relationships in communities (via our Money Angels) by being clearly locally rooted. We also know that preventing crisis in the first place is the most effective way of reducing the need for emergency intervention. In money management terms, prevention means effective education, but also better access to income maximisation work (especially benefits).
Money Angels is essentially a citizen activation endeavour. It puts the route map to financial resilience in the hands of people so that they can, through personal and trusted connection, guide family members, friends, neighbours, colleagues to life changing advice.
This system has been working in Liverpool for just over 18months now, and we have seen some wonderful impact already as a direct result of it. We have heard numerous anecdotes from individuals who tell us that if it wasn’t for the connection with a Money Angel, they wouldn’t have accessed advice. Imagine my joy when I heard recently of one such person who has just gone debt free via a DRO!
The Angels Connect initative is already proving game changing for those in communities in parts of the UK, it is our ambition to work with those who share our vision to see all who are going through a challenging time with their finances connected to life changing advice, anytime, anywhere. If you’d like to play your part, please reach out using the details below.
Thank you for reading,
Rich Jones, CEO