StepChange advises 17,267 new debt advice clients in March 2023

StepChange advised 17,267 new clients in March 2023, according to its monthly client data report published in March 2023¹. That is 7% higher than February 2023, when 16,076 new clients sought advice, and 15% higher than March 2022, when the figure was 14,966¹.

The charity said clients were feeling the impact of increased living costs, with over a quarter (26%) citing this as their main reason for debt¹. The proportion of clients with a negative budget was 34%, and the proportion in receipt of Universal Credit was 35%; both increased by one percentage point compared with February 2023¹.

Arrears on household energy bills also rose. Among clients with a responsibility for paying each bill type, 55% were in arrears with dual fuel, 29% with gas and 27% with electricity, with each figure up by one to two percentage points between February and March 2023¹.

Credit cards remained the most common unsecured debt type, held by two thirds (65%) of new clients at the time of advice¹.

Why it matters for households

The figures cover people who contacted StepChange for debt advice and first received it in March 2023, so they describe a group already in financial difficulty rather than the population as a whole¹. Within that group, the report points to pressure on everyday essentials: 34% had a negative budget, 35% were in receipt of Universal Credit, and 55% of those responsible for dual fuel bills were behind on them¹.

The report does not give figures for the wider UK population, and it does not report how many of the 17,267 clients had sought debt advice before. It also does not break the client numbers down by nation or region, so no UK-wide or country-level comparison is available from this data.

What happens next

StepChange publishes a monthly client data report, and the March 2023 edition is the latest in that series¹. The report links to its February 2023 and January 2023 editions, but no date has been reported for the next release¹.