Market engagement to begin on recommissioning of national debt advice services

The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) will begin market engagement on the recommissioning of its national telephone and digital debt advice services from early summer 2026, the body has said¹. The engagement sits alongside a new community-based debt advice (CBDA) grant scheme in England, whose first application round opened on 11 May 2026¹.

MaPS currently funds community-based debt advice through four grants worth around £35m per year, covering London, the East Midlands, Greater Merseyside and the rest of England¹. Existing grants will run until March 2028¹. The new scheme is broken down into 15 geographical lots across the nine English regions, and the application process will run in two rounds¹. For Round 1, funding allocated across lots ranges from £1.5m to £6m per year¹.

Round 1 consists of nine lots across four regions¹:

The remaining five regions will be competed across six lots in 2027, for beginning service in April 2029¹. Those regions are London, the North East, the East of England, the South West and the South East, which is split into two lots: Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; and Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex and Kent¹. MaPS has opened an Expression of Interest process for potential lead grant-holders in those areas¹.

MaPS describes community-based debt advice as "free, trusted and quality debt advice based within communities", embedded in local support infrastructure and drawing on community knowledge, presence and partnerships to reach people who might otherwise struggle to access advice¹. The scheme is intended to reduce the impact of problem debt, improve financial resilience and wellbeing, and strengthen local support networks¹.

Why it matters for households

The contracts and grants in question fund free debt advice that people in England use when they cannot pay what they owe. The current four community grants, worth around £35m a year, run until March 2028, so services funded through them have a stated end date¹. New grant funding under Round 1 covers nine lots in the East Midlands, North West, West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber, with between £1.5m and £6m a year allocated per lot¹. Households in London, the North East, the East of England, the South West and the South East are not covered by Round 1; those areas are to be competed in 2027, with service beginning in April 2029¹. The recommissioning of national telephone and digital debt advice, which is not limited by region, is the subject of the market engagement starting in early summer 2026¹. MaPS has not reported what the recommissioned national contracts will be worth or when they will take effect.

What happens next

The stage 1 application window for Round 1 areas opened on 11 May 2026 via the Atamis eTendering portal¹. MaPS says it will hold regional online webinars in July to provide context and framing for Round 2 regions¹. Round 2 is in a regional market engagement and development phase, and organisations in those regions can submit an Expression of Interest¹. Market engagement on the national telephone and digital debt advice recommissioning begins from early summer 2026¹. Further market engagement with potential applicants is planned ahead of Round 2¹.

For background on managing problem debt, see the site's debt guide.