IN THIS ISSUE Coronavirus impact Key messages from our DAS and IT team Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF And much more...

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IN THIS ISSUE Coronavirus impact Key messages from our DAS and IT team Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF And much more...
IN THIS ISSUE

Coronavirus impact
Key messages from our DAS and IT team
Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF
And much more...
IN THIS ISSUE Coronavirus impact Key messages from our DAS and IT team Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF And much more...
SPRING 2021

CONTENTS

Statistics                                 3

Impact of coronavirus pandemic             5

DAS team updates                           7

eDEN system messages                       12

DAS case reviews and decisions             14

Guest blog - Catriona Scott from CARF      17

eDEN updates                               20

Why are new cases returned for re-work     23

Top Tips from the DAS team                 25
IN THIS ISSUE Coronavirus impact Key messages from our DAS and IT team Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF And much more...
SPRING 2021

              Quarterly statistics - Quarter 4 2020-21

The latest statistics from AiB were published on 28 May 2021 for the fourth quarter of
2020-21 (January - March 2021).

There were 1,043 debt payment programmes (DPPs) under the Debt Arrangement
Scheme (DAS) approved in 2020-21 Q4, compared with 820 approved in the same
quarter of 2019-20, an increase of 27.2%.

A total of 453 DPPs approved under the DAS were completed in 2020-21 Q4 – a 2.7%
increase on the same quarter in 2019-20.

There were 196 DPPs revoked in 2020-21 Q4 – a 16.2% decrease on the same
quarter in 2019-20.

In 2020-21 Q4, around £10.2 million was repaid from debtors under the DAS
compared with the £9.7 million repaid in 2019-20 Q4, an increase of 5.3%.
IN THIS ISSUE Coronavirus impact Key messages from our DAS and IT team Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF And much more...
SPRING 2021

                         Ad hoc statistical release

AiB also released 2 sets of additional ad hoc statistics outside the regular Scottish
Statutory Debt Solutions Statistics release

The purpose of this ad-hoc statistics release was to assist all working groups in order
to prepare a detailed assessment on any recommendation and the wider impact on
all statutory debt solutions.

Ad hoc release 1

Ad hoc release 2
IN THIS ISSUE Coronavirus impact Key messages from our DAS and IT team Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF And much more...
Since March 2020, we have all been greatly impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The restrictions in particular, have affected all aspects of our daily lives, including how
we can continue to provide a DAS advice and payments distribution service for our
clients in times when the need for support is at its highest.

Temporary measures
The DAS Administrator introduced              temporary measures during the initial
                       ntroduced a number of tempo
lockdown in order to         DAS clients and money
                   o support D                      advisers whilst they adapted to
                                                ney advise
the new way of working.
                orking TThese included:
                                   ded:
                                     d:

    Understanding
               nding demand on ad      advisers
                                              ers ffro
                                                     from client
                                                            clie
                                                             clients
                                                                  nts requ
                                                                        requesting ing pa
                                                                                       payment breaks, we
    published    streamlined
            ed str     mlined
                          ne g guidance
                                    dance
                                        ncce tto simplify
                                                        plify
                                                           fy the
                                                           fy  t pro  process
                                                                           ce for DAS clients to apply for
                                                                        rocess
    a payment
            ent b break variat
                        variation
                              tion   themselves
                                  n the emselv
                                          ms vess
    Reducing
           ng th
               the evidence requirements eme en s as  a we  e ackno
                                                               acknowledged
                                                                   k           g many  any cclients were
    having  difficulty
         g diff
              fi
              ff       obtaining
                     y obta
                       ob   inin
                              ing   things
                                 g thing     lilike
                                     hi gs lik       payslips
                                                 ke paysysl
                                                        ysslips        letters
                                                             ps orr lette
                                                                       le       ffrom their
                                                                           erss fro     heir employer
    Accepting
          ting e electronic
                     tronic signatures
                              gnataturesess on DA DASAS mandat
                                                         ma
                                                         mandates
                                                                dates off authauthorityy
    Taking a sym
              sympathetic view ew in  n respe
                                        respect
                                            pe
                                            pe  ect ofo rev
                                                         revocation
                                                            vocatio tio action and    d vari
                                                                                         variation
    applications
            tions to extend
                       xtend
                          end ddiscretionary
                               diiscretio
                                  s                 cconditions
                                          on ry conditi
                                          onary         nd tions fo   for  clients impacted
                                                                       or clien
                                                                           cli       mpact as a result of
    the pandemic
             demic
    Working with ad advisers
                        sers andndd cre
                                     ccreditorss o  on FAQ   Q doc
                                                                do
                                                                documents during the initial
    lockdowns to share inf information
                                rmatio and           working
                                                  d wo
                                                     w           fflexibly where w
                                                             ng flex                  we could.

We hope these temporary measures helped you and your clients during these difficult
                  orary measu
times.
IN THIS ISSUE Coronavirus impact Key messages from our DAS and IT team Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF And much more...
Crisis Breaks
The 2019 DAS Amendment Regulations introduced Short Term Financial Crisis
Payment Breaks, known as crisis breaks, where a money adviser can immediately
approve a payment break for a period of 1 month, with 2 such crisis breaks being
allowed in any 12 month period.

As a result of offices closing, with staff working from home, money advisers have
struggled to meet with clients and deal with the increased demand for advice. The
ability to approve a crisis break has allowed money advisers to offer immediate relief
for clients experiencing a crisis, alongg with breathing space to arrange an appointment
in order that a full review may
                              ay be undertaken.

Over 2700 crisis breaks have been approved
                   eaks hav         prove by moneyy advise
                                                    advisers in the past year
(01/04/2020 to 01/04/2021).
                 1/04/20

Low and Grow  w DPDPPs
The money advice
             dvice community
                        munit    made
                            nity m
                                 maddee us
                                        u awaware
                                              waare
                                                  re
                                                   e of m
                                                        many   clients who tthey believed
                                                           ny clie
would benefitt fro
               from beingg in a DAS DPPPP but
                                           bu    could
                                             u coul      only afford to pay rreduced
                                                     uld onl
instalments towa
            toward their
                       eir D
                           DPPP in
                                i the  short-term
                                   th ssh
                                        ho e
                                        hort-te  erm
                                                  rm
                                                   m and   would
                                                       and wo
                                                           w ouldd be able
                                                                         le to increase their
contribution with
             within a spec
                      specified  period
                             ed peri
                                 perio
                                     iod off ti
                                             time
                                             timm once th their circ
                                                                circumstances
                                                                        tanc improved.

The Low and Grow Process
                       ocess
                          ess was discussed
                              w dis iiscussed
                                      scuss d and agagreed
                                                         ed by tthe DAS RReview Board,
which is comprised   of representatives
                ised o    present
                                ntat
                                  atives frfrom across
                                            rom a   oss the moneyy adv
                                                 cros                advice, payments
distribution and creditor sect
                           sectors.
                              tors.
                                rs GGuidance
                                         dance was   drafted detailing
                                                  as draf
                                                     dr       etailing the process, in
particular, how the DAS AdAdministrator
                                ist        expects
                                         r expe
                                             xp    such
                                                     uch proposals
                                                           oposals to be presented to
creditors. This guidance
                       ce was pu
                               published on 29/12/20202020 and the process introduced
from 11/01/2021.

This Low and Grow approach is intended to help clients who are in financial difficulty
but where the money adviser believes this to be temporary and a DPP is still the best
long-term financial solution for the client.

To date (14/05/2021), there have been 6 Low and Grow DPP applications approved.
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DAS Team updates
Telephone Service

When the office of the Accountant in Bankruptcy closed in March
2020, as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, our staff continued
working from home. Unfortunately, this meant that for a time, we
were unable to receive and return telephone calls so the majority
of communication was in writing, by letter or email.
The DAS team now have software which allows calls made to our office telephones
to redirected to staff working from home so a normal telephone service has
resumed.

Anyone calling the team are asked to be aware that whilst staff are working from
home, there may be some background noise and we appreciate your ongoing
support and understanding.

Reminder - DPA responsibilities

We would like to remind all users of eDEN of their responsibilities under the Data
Protection Act and ask that care is taken when entering or uploading personal
information on eDEN.

Examples include, personal information being included in free text fields, case notes,
or uploaded on documents, which have not been marked as ‘AiB Only’ and can be
seen by all parties involved in a DPP using eDEN.

Advisers and creditors are reminded that the free text information which is entered
in the ‘Reason for Variation’ and ‘Supporting Information’ fields on variation
applications, will pull through to the variation proposal letters issued. As this is an
automated process, the DAS Admin may not necessarily catch and prevent any
sensitive information input here being shared. Extreme caution is advised as a
reminder to all users.
IN THIS ISSUE Coronavirus impact Key messages from our DAS and IT team Guest article from Catriona Scott at CARF And much more...
SPRING 2021

Locked eDEN User Accounts

A high volume of enquiries received by the DAS team are from eDEN users who are
experiencing difficulties accessing eDEN. These are often due to user accounts
being locked.

The DAS team usually share the following information with users experiencing
difficulties with their account being locked or resetting a password, which we hope
you will find helpful.

User accounts will lock for the following reasons:

   When an incorrect password is entered multiple times;
   If an incorrect password is entered once after an account unlock – see Team Tip
   When there is more than one instance of the system open at the same time of
   setting your new password;
   If a password manager is used and is holding your old password.

If your account is locked, resetting your password will not automatically unlock it and
you will be required to contact the DAS team to ask for your account to be unlocked.

If you are a user for a particular organisation, the person who has ‘Manager’
permissions within your organisation can also unlock your user account.
SPRING 2021

                 When your account has been unlocked, use the ‘Reset Password’

    Team         option before trying to log in. This will give you three
                 opportunities to log in.
     tip         If you simply log in after your account has been unlocked, you will
                 only have one attempt to remember your password – and will be
                 locked out again immediately if you enter the password
                 incorrectly.
If you are unsure of what your password is this can be reset by:
     Selecting the .Reset Password link on the login screen;
     Enter your username and select Request;
     Close down all windows in your internet browser that contain our system;
     You will then receive an email with a link to reset your password.

If you know what your password is, ensure that there is only one instance of the
system open within your internet browser and then try to login with the last
password you have set.

eDEN User Accounts – Security

As detailed in the last edition of the DAS Digest, we would like to remind you that all
organisations using eDEN are responsible for monitoring their staff access to the
system. Manager permissions are given to nominated individuals within each
organisation and allow them to create, approve, maintain and delete user accounts.

All eDEN users are required to comply with a Data Protection statement each time
they log in to use the system. Individuals are also subject to the terms and
conditions of any contract or code of conduct issued by their employer, as well as
ensuring compliance with the DAS regulations.

The organisation is responsible for ensuring the information retained on eDEN is
correct and that it is only relevant staff who have permissions to use the system.
SPRING 2021

If a member of staff leaves, or no longer requires access to the system, the
individual within the organisation with manager access to eDEN is responsible for
deleting the user account. If they are unable to do so, or if the user account of the
individual with manager permissions is to be deleted and these permissions given to
someone else, they should contact the DAS Administrator as soon as possible.

If you require details of the user within your organisation who has manager
permissions, please contact the DAS team.

Organisations are encouraged, in terms of GDPR and general good housekeeping,
to review their staff access to the system at least on a quarterly basis.

Variations – Debt Change

Over 9,000 variation applications were lodged from 1 April 2020 to 1 April 2021.
Although the vast majority of these were predictably for crisis breaks and payment
breaks, the DAS Administrator has noted a substantial increase in variations being
made within 3 months of approval to correct debt balances which were incorrectly
represented at the start of the DPP.

In the first 6 months of 2020 the average number of variations to amend debt
balances were 120 per month. In the last 6 months this has averaged almost 250.

As the number of DPPs being approved have increased it is expected that the
corresponding variations to amend balances will follow suit. However, it has raised
concerns given the impact in terms of time and resources on the adviser or creditor
in having to submit a variation, and the client being in limbo until the DAS Admin
adjudicates almost a month later.

The DAS Admin will be looking into this further in terms of gathering information
and will be taking forward with relevant advisers. Any comments or ideas on how to
address the issues which impact everyone in the process are welcome.
SPRING 2021

Payments Distribution – AiB as PD Update

Since the regulations changed in November 2019 to allow AiB to act as Payments
Distributor, AiB has been nominated as PD in over 1600 live DAS cases.

Almost 75% of the live caseload is where a private money advice organisation acts
as the money adviser.

Overall the process is working well, with the main challenge getting creditors to
engage at the earliest opportunity to provide their banking information.
Other challenges are where payments made to creditors are then returned as the
debts have been assigned to another creditor without the PD being informed.

Payments cannot be made to creditors unless we have:
   Details of the correct creditor
   Creditor reference number
   Creditor BACS information

When a DPP is approved and AiB is the PD, we immediately contact the creditors to
obtain this information if it is not already confirmed on eDEN.

The role of the adviser is key here, as the quicker payments are started, the quicker
the DPP will complete for the client.

If the adviser and client work together to make sure the information being keyed
into eDEN is correct and current, the entire process is expedited.

At this juncture creditors are reminded of their obligation under regulation 23(8) of
the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2011, as amended, that if
they assign their debt to another organisation they must notify the DAS
Administrator immediately. As well as making sure the information is correct on
eDEN, it also ensures payment to the right creditor at the right time.
SPRING 2021

         eden system messages
                Money Advisers - Adding creditor details
 If you are adding a new creditor: 1. Please ensure that the creditor details are not
    already recorded on the Creditor list. 2. Do not select ‘Email’ as the preferred
 contact method as if the creditor has not registered to use eDEN, they will not be
        able to view details of the DAS DPP proposal unless/until they register

                 Money Advisers - Creditor references
Please ensure that the creditor reference for debts recorded on eDEN is accurate
 prior to confirming debt amounts and submitting DPP proposals. If the creditor
reference is entered incorrectly, for example, asterisks (*) or the DAS client’s email
  address, the proposal will be returned for this information to be checked and
                       amended, prior to being resubmitted.

     Money adviser & Payment Distributors - Uploading letters
   If you issue a letter regarding a specific case and produce this using your own
  system, please ensure that a copy is uploaded to eDEN, for example, completion
                                        letters.

                       Revocations with draft status
     We are currently completing housekeeping on eDEN. On 31/8/20 we will be
  removing all revocation application on draft status that are older than 3 months.
  Therefore any revocation application with a draft status which was created on or
  before the 30/5/20 will be deleted. Please submit any application required before
                                     the 31/8/20.
SPRING 2021

               Money Advisers - Crisis & Payment breaks
 If money advisers have approved a crisis break for their DAS client and then wish
  to apply for a subsequent payment break variation, care should be taken not to
     apply the payment break for months where a crisis break has already been
    approved. This causes issues on eDEN that require correction and can cause
                                      delays.

                           Debt confirmation
Reminder to Money Advisers that where you are using a letter, statement or phone
  call as evidence of debt confirmation please provide the date of the statement
        used or on which the debt was confirmed by way of a telephone call.
                             Debt confirmation process
In this financial year, there were 45 requests for DAS reviews. Although there is an increase
in the number of cases where the original decision was revoked, this was primarily
because the reviewing officer was provided with additional information that had not been
provided to the DAS administrator at the time of their decision.

                              Fair and reasonable
    Case 1
     Total debt £20,000.
     DPP term 9 years 4 months.
     DPP automatically approved as creditors holding over 90% of the total debt accepted
     or were deemed to have accepted the proposal.
     One creditor with 4% value of total debt submitted a review, believing their debt
     (factor fees) was not a debt due in the DPP
     Reviewing officer noted the factor fees were for a second property The client has
     committed their full surplus income to the DPP and no expenditure was allocated to
     future factor fees.
     Reviewing officer was not satisfied the DPP could be successful and the original
     decision to approve the DPP was revoked.
SPRING 2021

Case 2
Total debt £400,000.
DPP term 9 years 9 months
Discretionary condition to realise assets and make a lump sum payment. This was
proposed as a Low and Grow DPP application as the client committed to increase
payments when Covid restrictions are eased.
One creditor, owed 25% of the total debt, objected as they did not consider the
repayment term to be fair and reasonable as the client had assets that could be
realised and that they would not be repaid in full due to the statutory
administration fee charged.
DAS Administrator approved the DPP as it was considered fair and reasonable.
The creditor submitted a review, stating their reasons as being the same as those
given for their initial objection.
Reviewing officer considered the information provided by the money adviser in
respect of the client’s intention to realise assets, which would reduce the term of
the DPP by 3 years.
The decision to approve the DPP, with the discretionary condition to realise assets
and increase payments, was upheld and the review application was rejected.

                               Revocations
Total debt of £45,500.
DPP term of 10 years.
Creditor applied for revocation as the DAS client had missed 18 payments and
failed to maintain payments in respect of a continuing liability.
No response received from the client regarding the proposed revocation and
missed payments, therefore, the DAS Administrator revoked the DPP.
DAS client requested a review, acknowledging they had not made payments for
some time due to ill health and hoped to be in a position to resume payments in
3 months’ time.
Reviewing officer considered reasons provided and the fact that the DAS client
had not contacted their money adviser to advise that they were unwell, seek
advice or request a payment break.
The decision to reject the DPP was upheld and the review application was
rejected.
SPRING 2021

                               Variations
Total debt of £17,500.
DPP term of 9 years.
Application for payment break variation submitted as DAS client’s income was
reduced as a result of the Covid pandemic.
Two creditors, owed 61% of the total debt, rejected the payment break as the client
had already had two consecutive payment breaks and if the payment break
variation was approved they would not receive a payment for 18 months.
DAS Administrator rejected the payment break so a full review of client’s
circumstance could be undertaken.
Money adviser requested a review of the decision to reject the payment break
variation application.
Reviewing officer noted client’s income had been reduced to nil as a result of not
being able to work due to the Covid pandemic and accepted that whilst creditors
had not received payments for some time, it was due to circumstances affecting
everyone in their industry and prior to the pandemic, no DAS payments had been
missed. Money adviser suggested that as lockdown restrictions eased, the client
should be in a position to recommence payments to DAS DPP.
Reviewing officer overturned the decision to reject the payment break variation,
advising that the client must immediately inform his money adviser of any change in
circumstances that resulted in a return to work.
Providing Debt Advice during lockdown
                by Catriona Scott CARF
                            Catriona Scott, money adviser with Citizens Advice & Rights
                            Fife (CARF), has shared her experiences of how a mainly face
                            to face debt advice provider has managed providing an
                            ongoing service throughout the pandemic.

At the start of lockdown we, in common with many other organisations, were not fully
prepared for home working! However, in a short period of time, we quickly adapted
ensuring we had the correct hardware and software to allow all our staff to work from
home and continue to support existing and new clients. Remote working with
different systems and procedures was a steep learning curve for all of our team, along
with the recurring changes to legislation and guidance as a result of the measures
implemented to assist with COVID.

We now provide a full telephone advice and video conferencing service for our clients.
Video conferencing was a completely new service that was introduced to supplement
telephone advice and as an alternative to our previous face-to-face meetings.

We have also been working with Money Advice Scotland to offer our clients who have
online banking, an Affordability Passport. This enables clients to gather their income
and expenditure information as well as their Experian credit report in less than ten
minutes.
SPRING 2021

We are currently working on an exciting development funded by the Scottish Legal Aid
Board to enhance our digital presence by developing an online platform to enable
clients to access our service digitally, streamlining our processes which should result
in clients seeing Money Advisers at an earlier opportunity. We have also increased our
web chat availability to assist client’s with accessing our service.

The additional administrative tasks remote working has created whilst obtaining
relevant, up to date verification documents from clients has been challenging. We
have created a simple “How to” guide explaining how they can provide the required
information which has helped. We have continued to successfully progress DAS and
Bankruptcy applications throughout the last 12 months although the numbers have
been impacted by the forbearance measures in place. Many existing DAS clients made
use of the payment and crisis breaks available.

We recognise some staff and clients still prefer face to face meetings, and hope this
service will shortly be available for those who need it, alongside the other methods
detailed above. However, many clients and staff find remote working more flexible,
accessible and less restrictive than our previous more formal interview slots that were
limited and determined by room availability from our bureaux. I have found that I have
significantly reduced incidents of non-attendance at appointments, and am able to
provide a more flexible approach to scheduling meetings.

Our team does miss the ease of sharing knowledge and team cohesion, but we have
monthly Teams meetings and are able to contact each either by phone, email or
Teams. We have created a FAQ document and share information via email on a
regular basis. There are definitely benefits from home working, no commute, better
work life balance, less distractions and ability to listen to the radio station of your
choice!
I believe as an organisation we learned to adapt very quickly. What lockdown has
reinforced is that one size does not fit all, we have to be as flexible and accessible to
our clients in order to provide a holistic service, meaning we have to continue to
develop our service delivery and work closely with partnering organisations
SPRING 2021

                           eDEN updates
Eden System Releases

A lot has happened since the Winter 2020 edition of the DAS Digest was published.
Since then we have had four major releases with various hotfix releases in between,
which delivered 277 development tickets (changes or fixes) in total. Not all of these
tickets will be listed in the associated release notes as some are relevant to internal
users only, but this demonstrates the amount of work that has went into improving
the functionality on the system:
SPRING 2021

The next release (2.5) is currently being tested and will be released in May. As usual, a
release note will be issued to all users prior to go live but some of the main changes
are:

   Users will be able to select what notifications they receive or not
   Additional notifications to Money Adviser users
   Crisis breaks will not be able to be submitted if there is a live payment break
   Ability for MAs to view and export the creditor organisation list
   Creditors will be able to view the Personal Application when added at DPP stage
   PD letters – PD header and footer will be used in completion letters

As soon as 2.5 goes live we will start testing 2.6 which focuses on the Authorised
Representative functionality.

As always any feedback or suggestions about the system are always welcomed.
Please contact Nicola Robertson if you would like to discuss any aspect of the system.

Document Migration

We are also looking at finalising document migration from DASH to eDEN . As part of
the work on this we will need to remove access to DASH, however if access to a case
or document on DASH is required you can contact the DAS team who will be able to
provide the information needed. Once migration is complete DASH will be removed
completely.
SPRING 2021

Redistribution Project

Work has been ongoing since last year to check and correct the balances of all cases
migrated from DASH to eDEN, and this task has now been completed.

This has been a mammoth task and a huge achievement. AiB would like to thank
everyone who has been involved in this, from the internal team led by Jennifer
Seymour, to the PDs for checking the cases and everyone else for their patience while
this was being worked on. However, everyone can now be confident that the
information on eDEN is accurate and up to date.

                        Need to contact us

  Case related queries - das@aib.gov.uk or 0300 200 2770
             System queries - eDENenquiries@aib.gov.uk
SPRING 2021

   Why are new cases
   returned for re-work

The DAS team thought it may be helpful to collate a list of common reasons why new
case applications are returned for correction. Money advisers may wish to include the
following in their checks prior to submitting applications on eDEN:

Incomplete or incorrect information in Debt Screen

    Debt confirmation hasn’t been done in the last 6 weeks [Note: this is a concession
    given the current circumstances. It is usually 4 weeks].
    ‘Confirmation Requested On’ and ‘Confirmed On’ fields in the debt screen both
    show as ‘Null’. There are two possible reasons for this:

        i) the creditor has not signed up to use eDEN (Preferred Contact Method is
        ‘Post’), and you have carried out the debt confirmation offline.

        ii) the creditor administers their DAS caseload on eDEN (Preferred Contact
        Method is ‘Email’ or ‘None’) and they have not responded through the system.

If a debt has ‘Null/Null’ in the above fields you must complete the creditor comments
field with the creditor’s response (if obtained offline) or details of how you originally
obtained the balance (e.g. letter/email dated xxx, phone call dated xxx, statement
dated xxx). N.B. a statement balance should only be used as a last resort, where you
have tried unsuccessfully to confirm the balance by other methods. Please give
details, including dates, of the other methods you have tried.ds)’ or ‘TSB Bank Plc, as
appropriate.
SPRING 2021

Full guidance on the debt confirmation process can be found here.

   Creditor reference numbers missing or incomplete.
   Balances/reference numbers haven’t been updated to reflect creditor comments.
   The figure in the ‘Proposal Amount’ field does not match the ‘Debt Amount
   (Creditor)’ field
   Incorrect or obsolete creditor names chosen – e.g. ‘Lloyds TSB’ – these are now
   two separate organisations and you should use ‘Lloyds Banking Group (Lloyds)’ or
   ‘TSB Bank Plc, as appropriate.

Mandate issues

   Client details on mandate are different from those entered on eDEN (e.g. middle
   name is missing).
   Money adviser organisation details not completed.
   Payment distributor organisation details not completed.
   Previous mandate(s) not deleted when a new one is uploaded.

General

Trigger figures have been exceeded but this has not been explained in the MA
Declaration section of the application.

Discretionary condition is incomplete – e.g. if the client proposes to increase the
instalment amount, or pay a lump sum, by a particular time, a specific figure must be
stated and a specified timescale given. You should also provide the reasons why the
client will be able to make this increase/lump sum payment

Potentially sensitive documents uploaded to case but not marked as ‘AiB only’ e.g.
payslips, bank statements, phone bills.
SPRING 2021

               Top Tips from the DAS team
Reminder - Use notes functionality on eDEN cases
If you wish to provide additional information in respect of a DAS DPP
or want to provide any updates, we would suggest you create a note on eDEN.

If the information being added is personal or sensitive and you don’t feel it is
appropriate for anyone else to read, other than the DAS Administrator, you can tick
the ‘AiB Only’ box when adding the note.

Any further information provided will be saved to the case and will allow the DAS
Administrator to note this, should we consider taking action on a case, for example,
starting revocation action.

eDEN user accounts - manager permissions
As detailed in the release notes for eDEN Development Release 2.4, eDEN users
who have ‘Manager’ permissions can create, approve, unlock and delete user
accounts for staff within their organisations who use the eDEN system.

If you are unsure who has ‘Manager’ permissions within your organisation, or
would like to change or nominate a user to be given these permissions (this will be
restricted to one person per organisation), please contact the DAS team.

 Application - Progress Bar
If any sections of the progress bar at the top of the screen on a draft application
are red, and you are not sure why, click on the ‘Submit’ button in the menu on the
left-hand side of the screen. This will give you more detail on the area(s) needing
amendment.
SPRING 2021

               Top Tips from the DAS team

Selecting Creditors – Organisation List
When adding debts to a DPP application on eDEN, please ensure you thoroughly
check the Creditor list for already registered creditors, before manually entering
creditors details (draft creditor).

Creditors on the Organisation list may have confirmed their contact details and
stated their preferred contact method, e.g. they may wish to receive proposals by
post or may engage with eDEN and receive them electronically. If draft creditors
are added, for creditors already on the organisation list, the proposals may not be
directed to confirmed address or team to deal with and if they use eDEN, they will
not be able to view case using their existing login details.

Also, care should be taken when selecting creditors where an organisation has co-
brands, for example, store credit cards and catalogues. In most instances, the
parent company should be selected, if known, where there is not a specific
registered entry for the individual creditor on the Organisation list. If you are in any
doubt about which creditor to select, please contact the DAS team.
SPRING 2021

              Top Tips from the DAS team
Crisis Breaks – Reasons
Short Term Financial Crisis Payment Breaks were introduced as part of the 2019
DAS Amendment Regulations. The decision was taken not to include a prescriptive
list of what would be considered an acceptable reason for money advisers to
approve a crisis break as we would never be able to capture all the circumstances
when one may be appropriate. As a result, it was left to the discretion of the money
adviser.

It is worth noting that we do monitor the reasons crisis breaks are being approved
and this is due to the fact that following the introduction of any legislative changes,
we are required to review them in order to report on the effectiveness and
determine whether further amendment is required or further clarification should
be provided.

Because of this, entering reasons such as ‘unexpected expenses’ is not helpful and
we may seek further clarification on what these unexpected expenses are.

As such, we would suggest money advisers give as much information as they can in
the Supporting Information field (without sharing what they may consider to be
sensitive information) so that it is recorded on the case and so creditors receive an
explanation as to why the payment(s) is/are being missed.

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