Who speaks for consumers: the Consumer Panel, Citizens Advice, Which? and others

When a financial rule is written, someone has to speak for the people who will live under it. In UK financial services that work is done by a mix of statutory bodies, charities and campaign groups: the Financial Services Consumer Panel, which advises on how the Financial Conduct Authority's rules affect consumers; Citizens Advice, which gives free help with debt, scams and consumer problems; StepChange, which provides free debt advice and fee-free debt management plans; Which?, with its research and its power to bring super-complaints; and Fair By Design, which campaigns against the poverty premium.

These groups do two different jobs. Some give you direct help with your own money problems. Others never touch an individual case but push regulators and government to change the rules themselves. Knowing which is which saves you time: the Consumer Panel cannot take your complaint, but the Financial Ombudsman can, and Citizens Advice and StepChange can help you get there.

Advice or campaigning: two ways consumer groups speak for you

The groups on this page fall into two camps, and the difference matters when you decide where to turn.

The first camp gives advice to individuals. Citizens Advice offers free advice on debt and other money problems⁷, and StepChange offers free, flexible debt advice based on a comprehensive assessment of your situation, with practical help and support for as long as it is needed⁷. The Financial Ombudsman Service is free for consumers, and friends, families, charities and advice centres can also bring cases directly to it free of charge⁸. These services exist to help you with your own problem, today.

The second camp campaigns. These bodies respond to consultations, publish research and press regulators to change the rules. Fair By Design works on "reshaping essential services such as energy, credit and insurance so that they don't cost more if you're in poverty"⁹. Which? used a super-complaint to force a review of scam protections⁶. StepChange does both jobs at once: it runs debt management plans for individuals and publishes policy responses on how the regulatory framework should change¹⁰.

The two camps feed each other. When the Payment Systems Regulator asked "for views as to whether there is adequate consumer protection, or if more needs to be done" in interbank payments, it was consumer groups whose evidence shaped the answer¹¹. And the ombudsman has long run a liaison group whose members include Age UK, the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, Citizens Advice, the Financial Services Consumer Panel, Money Advice Scotland, the Money Advice Trust, Trading Standards and Which?¹². So an issue you raise with an advice charity can end up, in aggregate, as part of the case for a rule change.

Legislation gives some of this work formal standing. Under the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act 2007, a consumer advocacy body may "provide advice to the designated consumer or, if the complaint was made by another person on the designated consumer['s behalf]" and "make representations on behalf of the designated consumer to the supplier"¹³. The same Act gives the General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland powers to "provide advice and information to persons... about consumer matters" and to "represent the views of consumers on consumer matters"¹³. Campaigning is not just noise: in several cases it is a statutory function.

The Financial Services Consumer Panel: a statutory voice focused on the FCA

The Financial Services Consumer Panel is the statutory body set up to represent the interests of consumers in the making of financial rules. It sits alongside the FCA, which authorises and supervises most firms consumers deal with, from banks and lenders to insurers and debt advisers, and its role is to speak for consumers where those rules are being written.

The Panel's job is to look at proposed rules and say what they would do to ordinary people. In its response to HM Treasury's review of the Payment Services Regulations, it argued that protections for people making payments should not depend on the size or type of the firm they use: a payment made through a small fintech app should be as protected as one made through a big bank. The same response set out positions on cash access, arguing that all consumers should be given the choice of paying with cash and that those who depend on cash should be able to access essential services, and on fraud, stating that firms operating in UK payment systems should be required to have robust and effective fraud controls in place.

It also presses government. On safeguarding, the Panel encouraged HM Treasury to revisit the safeguarding regime and, in particular, where and how it is used, questioning whether it is appropriate for basic payment accounts promoted to vulnerable consumers.

StepChange has argued that the Panel should be strengthened, supporting "the proposal to expand the number of statutory panel members to reflect the diversity of experience of consumers" and urging that a strategy be set out that "would allow the consumer panel to support (including through funding) collection of insight by consumer organisations"¹⁰. The idea is that charities, which see problems at the front line, could feed what they see into the Panel's official voice.

Citizens Advice: free help with debt, scams and consumer problems

Citizens Advice is one of the largest advice charities, and it is free. The ombudsman notes that "Citizens Advice offers a free service, including for help with gambling problems"⁴ and "offers free advice on debt and other money problems"⁷. It also offers guidance on what to do if you have been scammed¹⁴.

In England and Wales, the Citizens Advice consumer service can be reached on 0808 223 1133, with opening hours Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm¹. If you want to speak to a Welsh-speaking adviser, call 0808 223 1144³. The service does more than answer questions: it can refer your complaint to local Trading Standards officers, "who may then investigate on your behalf", and it shares complaint information nationally with enforcement authorities, including Trading Standards, the Competitions and Markets Authority and regulators, "so that action can be taken"¹⁵.

That referral and sharing role is what makes Citizens Advice a campaigning force as well as an advice service. Every complaint logged becomes part of a national picture of where firms are going wrong, and that picture is used to push for change. In August 2026, for example, Citizens Advice called on Ofgem to hold companies to account over faulty smart meters, saying three million smart meters were failing to deliver and urging stricter rules guaranteeing faulty meters are fixed quickly.

Citizens Advice also appears where policy is being made. When the Public Accounts Committee examined whether regulators of water, energy and broadband do enough for vulnerable people in September 2026, its inquiry took evidence from Citizens Advice among others, and recommended joint working, discounted tariffs as a default, a single central register, a statutory water ombudsman and free telecoms advice. The charity's front-line evidence is one of the main ways regulators and Parliament learn what actually happens to people.

StepChange: free debt advice and fee-free debt management plans

StepChange Debt Charity is a debt advice charity, and the key fact about it is cost: "organisations like StepChange Debt Charity offer free debt management plans"². Northern Ireland's official guidance says the same¹⁶. Some commercial debt management companies charge fees that come out of your monthly payment; with a fee-free plan, everything you pay goes to your creditors.

StepChange offers "free, flexible debt advice that is based on a comprehensive assessment of your situation and provide[s] practical help and support for however long it's needed"⁷. That assessment matters: the right debt solution depends on your income, your debts and your assets, and advice comes before any decision. In Scotland, StepChange are approved money advisers and can act as both your money adviser and payment distributor under the Debt Arrangement Scheme³.

Two facts answer the questions people most often worry about. First, "debt advice does not impact your credit file or credit score"³. Getting advice is not the same as entering a debt solution, and advice alone leaves no mark. Second, a debt management plan is an informal arrangement rather than a regulated deposit, so the protections that apply to bank deposits do not apply to payments made through a plan; what you have instead is a fee-free structure and a plan that is reviewed regularly¹⁷.

If you are struggling with debt, the general rule from official guidance is to "always get free, independent help before you pay a commercial service"². Free advice is available from several organisations, and there is no reason to pay for a first opinion. The debt advice and debt management firms page explains how those firms are regulated, and the debt section covers the solutions themselves.

How a StepChange debt management plan works day to day

A debt management plan is a single monthly payment, worked out from your budget, distributed to your creditors. StepChange states that "we should review your plan every 12 months" and "when things in your life change"¹⁷, and its commitment to clients is to "review the plan whenever your situation changes"¹⁷.

The review cycle is the part that protects you. A plan set up when you were in work becomes unaffordable if your income falls, and unnecessarily long if your income rises. Because the plan is reviewed at least annually, and sooner when something changes, the payment is meant to track your real budget rather than the budget you had on day one. StepChange also lets clients complete their review online¹⁷, which matters if phone calls are difficult.

What a plan does not do is freeze interest or protect you from creditor action in the way a formal solution can. A debt management plan is an informal agreement, and creditors are not bound by it. Whether it suits you depends on the size of your debts, your income and how quickly you could realistically repay them, which is why the comprehensive assessment comes first⁷. The debt section sets out the alternatives, including formal solutions with different protections and consequences.

Which?: research, super-complaints and scam alerts

Which? is a consumer organisation known for research and campaigns, and in financial services its most consequential power is the super-complaint. A super-complaint is a complaint a designated consumer body can make directly to a regulator, asking it to investigate a feature of the market that may be harming consumers. Which? used this power over payment scams: the Payment Systems Regulator's response records the super-complaint on "consumer safeguards in the market for push payments"⁶, and a subsequent consultation describes it as "a super-complaint issued by the consumer group Which?"¹⁸.

The investigation that followed was substantial. The regulator's evidence base included a statutory information request to the six largest providers of payment accounts in the UK, a statutory information request to six operators of UK payment systems, meetings with 35 external stakeholders, a survey of 2000 UK adults, submissions to a dedicated super-complaints inbox, and information provided by Which? from its online feedback tool⁶. That work fed into later consultations on the consumer standard of caution for app fraud, including the value of the excess and maximum reimbursement level for Faster Payments, and questions on a maximum reimbursement level for CHAPS on behalf of the Bank of England¹⁹.

Which? also runs a Scam Alert Service. Scottish Government guidance notes that "Which? have created a weekly alert service, which also looks at the most recent scams reported by consumers in the UK"²⁰. The scale of the problem it responds to is documented by the ombudsman: in the year from April 2021 to March 2022 it upheld "around three quarters of 'authorised' scam complaints in the consumers' favour"²¹, and banking and consumer credit continue to be the most complained about sectors, with an increase year on year in the first six months of 2024²². Research by the FSCS found 53% of people in the UK financial services industry's survey expressed concern about becoming a victim of fraud or scams in 2022²³.

Fair By Design and the poverty premium

Fair By Design is a campaign fund managed by the Barrow Cadbury Trust on behalf of a group of foundations⁹. Its purpose is "reshaping essential services such as energy, credit and insurance so that they don't cost more if you're in poverty"⁹. The thing it campaigns against is the poverty premium: the extra costs people on low incomes pay for the same essentials, for example because they cannot pay by direct debit, cannot buy insurance in a lump sum, or are priced out of the cheapest credit.

Its most recent evidence is the poverty premium research commissioned by Fair By Design and published in 2026⁹. The campaign works by responding to consultations and pressing regulators to design rules that do not penalise poverty. In August 2026, for example, Fair By Design responded to Ofgem's consultation on consumer outcomes as they relate to billing, calling for minimum standards alongside outcomes, and cited the three-year investigation into British Gas forced installation of pre-payment meters as an example of harm not prevented early.

The relevance to financial services is direct. The high-cost credit review and the rules on financial promotions both touch the markets where the poverty premium is charged, and Fair By Design's research is one of the main evidence bases regulators are pointed to when those rules are reviewed. Its work also connects to the financial inclusion agenda: access to affordable credit and basic banking is part of the same problem.

What these groups are pushing regulators to change

The current campaigning agenda, as the documents show, clusters around a few live issues.

Payments and digital wallets. The Consumer Panel told the Payment Systems Regulator that "the current regulatory framework is not effective in regulating what is in effect becoming the means to making a payment", arguing that "digital wallets, as with all the systemic components on which payments depend should be in regulatory scope"²⁴. It also warned of "a significant risk that payment firms start to introduce new payment services through digital wallets, excluding those that don't have access to them"²⁴. On wallet business models, the Panel concluded from publicly available material "that fees are either extracted from the interchange or waived in lieu of data usage"²⁴. The PSR's own work on interbank payment protections began with a call for views at the start of 2021²⁵.

The balance of regulatory objectives. StepChange has said it is "concerned that the proposed new Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) objective on growth and international competitiveness could become rivalrous to the existing consumer protection objective" when applied to markets like mortgage or consumer credit, and could blunt the FCA's focus on consumer protection¹⁰.

Financial promotions and credit rules. The FCA's consultation CP26/15 on reviewing financial promotions rules for consumer credit is addressed to lenders, brokers and others undertaking credit-related activities, industry groups and trade bodies, and consumer groups and organisations²⁶. Consumer groups respond to consultations like this one; the consultations page explains how the process works and how anyone can respond.

Insurance. In May 2026 the Financial Services Regulation Committee "has today launched an inquiry into the regulation of the consumer insurance market"²⁷.

Ombudsman reform. The government's review of the Financial Ombudsman Service states that "these reforms are intended to provide greater certainty and predictability for consumers and firms who use the FOS"²⁸, and the consultation sets out the ombudsman's ability "to decide on an appropriate remedy, including a money award (up to a limit set by the FCA) or a direction to put things right"²⁹.

Consumer understanding. In September 2025 the FCA carried out a survey of 38 firms, including insurance, retail banking, payments, consumer finance and Contract for Difference providers, looking at how well consumers understand products³⁰.

Where free help stops: limits on who each service can help

Free help is real, but each service has boundaries, and knowing them prevents wasted weeks.

The Financial Ombudsman can "usually help individual or joint consumers of a financial business that provides services or products in the UK", regardless of nationality or where they live⁵. It is free⁴. But it cannot help with everything: on scams, "we won't be able to help with solving the crime itself, that's a matter for the police"¹⁴. Its powers also have a ceiling: "if we think compensation should be higher than our award limit, we can recommend that the financial business pays more", but it cannot make the business pay anything over the limit³¹.

The FSCS is narrower still. In most situations "FSCS unfortunately can't compensate people for money that has been lost due to scams or fraud", the exception being where bad advice came from an authorised financial adviser to invest in something that turns out to be a scam³². The FSCS or Financial Ombudsman comparison explains the division of work between the two.

MoneyHelper offers "free, impartial money and pension guidance, backed by government"³³, described again in 2026 as "free, impartial help for money and pensions that's quick to find, easy to use and backed by government"³⁴. Guidance is not the same as regulated financial advice: MoneyHelper can explain options, not recommend a specific product. The ombudsman also runs a Business Support Hub, "a free resource for consumer advisers and complaint handlers at financial businesses"³⁵, which is aimed at firms rather than consumers.

For debt, the limit is about what each solution does rather than who qualifies. A debt management plan is informal; formal solutions have stronger protections but more serious consequences. And the rules that protect you while you use a product apply regardless: regulations, including the Consumer Duty, require firms to "support you while you're using their product or service" and to "be flexible and find ways to support vulnerable customers"³⁶.

Getting help after a scam or a failed complaint

If you have lost money to a scam, the first steps are practical. The FSCS advises you to "speak to your bank, building society or credit union as they can protect and reimburse victims of certain types of fraud", and to report it to Action Fraud at www.actionfraud.police.uk³². If you are unhappy with how your bank or payment services provider handled things after you were tricked into making a payment, the ombudsman "may be able to help"³⁷, and the Payment Systems Regulator says that "if you are unhappy with their response, you can take the matter further by referring it to the Financial Ombudsman Service"³⁸. The ombudsman can also help with disputes about payments you did not authorise that were not part of a scam¹⁴.

The order of the steps matters. Complain to the firm first and give it the chance to put things right; the ombudsman expects this before it looks at a case. Its online complaint checker works the same way: "answer a few questions on our website and we'll let you know if we think we can help and what you need to do next"⁴⁰. If the firm has failed, the route changes: the FSCS handles claims where the adviser has failed, and for a pension transfer complaint you would "complain to the adviser first if still trading, then contact the Financial Ombudsman Service"⁴¹.

Two other routes exist for specific problems. If your complaint is about a claims management company, official guidance directs you: complain to the FCA "if you're unhappy with the conduct of a claims company", and "you'll be referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service if your complaint is about poor service"⁴². And if your problem is with a regulator itself rather than a firm, the complaining about the FCA page sets out that separate process.

The ombudsman is changing, and the changes affect how you use it. From 1 October 2026, new dismissal powers take effect, covering complaints better resolved elsewhere or involving no financial loss, material distress or inconvenience, alongside formal rule changes to the dismissal framework and the amended fair and reasonable test⁴³. Before that, online portals for businesses and consumers were rolled out, with an enhanced online complaint form streamlining and simplifying the complaint journey⁴³. A registration stage will be piloted from October 2026, beginning with fraud and scams casework. Consumers, charities and advice centres will still be able to bring cases directly, free of charge⁸.