Barclays 'Money Skills' for disadvantaged young people: impact evaluation

1. Description of the programme
2. The study
3. What are the outcomes?
4. Key findings
5. Points to consider

Description of the programme

Barclays ‘Money Skills’ programme aims to engage young people from a variety of backgrounds to help them improve their financial skills, attitudes, confidence and behaviours. It is delivered in partnership with youth/government organisations across the UK, both online and in person. The programme is designed to improve the financial capability of individuals across six dimensions: making ends meet, keeping track of finances, planning ahead, choosing products, keeping informed and attitudes to money.

The programme consists of two schemes:

• The Money Skills Champions peer-education scheme specifically focuses on young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs). NEETS are trained so that they can share basic financial skills and knowledge with their peers.
• The Action for Children scheme focuses on severely disadvantaged young people who are NEET, including homeless young people aged 16 -25, and young offenders. It provides one-to-one and group support through resources and activities delivered by support workers and volunteers.

The programme provides an online resource hub for support workers.

The study

The evaluation involved surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations:

• 20 Action for Children and 2,185 Money Skills Champions participants completed surveys about their knowledge and skills before the programme; 14 and 275 follow-up surveys (conducted six weeks later) were received for each scheme respectively.
• Interviews were conducted with three Action for Children support workers and five Champions support workers. Focus groups were also conducted with 14 Action for Children beneficiaries and 19 Champions. Topics included financial capability, access to resources, effectiveness of peer education/volunteering and adapting saving behaviour.
• Three training sessions were observed on the Action for Children scheme. Similarly, five sessions were observed on the Money Skills Champions scheme.
• The evaluation was conducted at five Champions schemes and three Action for Children Centres.

What are the outcomes?

1. Financial capability (ability): Budgeting and keeping track; ability to communicate financial knowledge to peers
2. Financial capability (mindset): Spending awareness
3. Financial behaviour: Saving

Key findings

• Budgeting: 71% of Action for Children beneficiaries said that they had started budgeting better as a result of Barclays Money Skills. Across both schemes, 64% said they began to keep a budget after participating in Barclays Money Skills, compared with 33% before.
• Better saving: Across both schemes, 57% said that they save £5 or more every month after Barclays Money Skills, compared with 29% before.
• Saving behaviour: 86% of Money Skills champions said they were saving for the future after taking part, compared to 47% before the programme.
• Financial knowledge: Across both schemes, 67% were able to answer a question about APR correctly after the programme, compared to 40% before.
• Spending awareness: Before and after the Money Skills Champions scheme, individuals were asked to grade their level of agreement with ten statements relating to financial matters. As a result of participating there was an increase in both the number of participants who said they were tracking their spending, and those who said they were regularly reviewing their spending.
• Process findings: A majority of interviewees reported that they wanted to continue their involvement with the programme. For the Champions scheme, respondents reported wanting more accessible activities, languages and resources to be made available. For the Action for Children scheme, respondents wanted to know more about financial terminology/services and have more tailored support specifically focused on the needs of young people.

Points to consider

• Methodological limitations: Although 2,185 people completed the ‘before’ survey, only 375 people completed the ‘after’ survey. Because we are missing responses for a large proportion of participants, we do not know whether the results of this study are representative. There are also some limitations with the qualitative findings in the report. First, because the report does not describe how participants were chosen to take part in the interviews and focus groups, we cannot be sure that they are representative.  Second, the qualitative data is not analysed fully – rather, quotes are picked specifically for their message, not analysed for re-occurring themes/ideas.
• Generalisability / transferability: Whilst limited to participants on the Barclays Money Skills programme, this study provides a useful insight into NEETs/ unprivileged young people’s financial capability in the UK.
• Applicability: Applicable to organisations wishing to train or up-skill young people in finance management or with an interest in peer-education.
• Relevance: Many young people struggle with financial matters – a problem that is worsened when institutions and organisations are unable to reach them for training/education. This study highlights the effectiveness of peer tutoring, and evidences a successful approach to training and education for hard to reach young people.

Full report

Barclays 'Money Skills' for disadvantaged young people: impact evaluation - full report