FAQs

Michael is the founder of the Alliance. Michael funds some of the investigative work and actions as agreed by the Alliance members. Michael leads on the roundtables held four times a year and is the lead representative for press, campaigns and public engagement. Michael makes no income from this work.

We have many members, all of whom you can see on the About Us page. The Alliance is Chaired by Shirley Cramer, Chief Executive of the Royal Society for Public Health and there are additional organisations who support our work but aren’t publicly listed members.

The Alliance takes the approach of collaboration and pragmatic action. To deliver a system that supports fairer credit for all we need to collaborate in designing the new systems and work together to identify priority actions. The regulators and governments across the UK have engaged with the work of the Alliance from day one on the basis the Alliance does not seek to push priorities of the left or right – simply to take pragmatic approaches to promote ‘what works’ and deliver fairer credit for all. This doesn’t stop individual members from lobbying or campaigning against regulators or governments and it may be deemed appropriate for the Alliance to back those actions from time-to-time.

There was no specific moment or story which led to Michael engaging with high cost credit. He looked into the issue, partly as a result of it being raised on numerous occasions in the media and when supporting local project. It quickly became clear that this was a wicked problem and would need a fresh approach to really deliver change. It needed a whole system approach and a pragmatic way of attack. In order to deliver a system change and defeat the poverty premium we started to identify who had the expertise, resources and will to do something ambitious and strategic. An Alliance was formed to recognise the work of these partners, to bring some focus to our efforts and to provide some structure to how we operate. An Alliance felt most appropriate as the focus is on collaborating and inviting all who share the same vision to be part of the challenge – even if some aspects present challenges for them.

The Alliance has been in development for a year. The membership has gradually grown over that year and has met to discuss the priorities for action. The primary focus over the first year has been to review the extensive work already carried out by members and to ensure we use the evidence base to inform how we work, what we focus on and to not replicate actions. We then debate the areas of focus, where we can be most effective and move swiftly to resource actions. We also receive and review requests from Alliance members to get behind their actions. This has already resulted in several campaigns and schemes receiving support from Alliance members and publicly from Michael Sheen.

Not all Alliance Members back every action. For each action we’ll declare which of our Members are involved and support the action.

Primarily the Alliance focusses on sharing the resources available within member organisations, but also uses the additional opportunities having Michael as a founder brings us. Michael is one of several members to fund specific projects agreed by the Alliance and further funds from external sources will be sought to help deliver the more ambitious and large scale projects.

The administration of the Alliance is led by the Office of Michael Sheen and funded by Michael.

You can get in touch via the Contact Us page. A core group of members review requests for membership to ensure all members are free of conflict of interest and sign up to the principals of collaboration.

The Alliance will deliver outcomes in education, alternatives, wider workforce, public engagement and policy/regulation.

For education the Alliance is exploring how to mainstream financial education and ensuring everyone has a greater understanding of how to manage their finances, understands APR and knows where to get support.

For alternatives we are looking to make the system fairer and more supportive to their specific needs, ensuring capital flow and the wider business needs are supported so they can take on the market providers unfairly targeting consumers who can least afford their products and generally offering fairer finance for all consumers. Further announcements will be made soon on the specific support available to fair providers of finance which will include financial, regulatory, marketing and general support to strengthen their ability to operate at scale.

The Alliance will explore ways to improve the information and skills held at a local and national level by those who support individuals and communities with their financial needs. This includes looking at the wider workforce and equipping them to support and signpost.

Michael will publicly deliver and support a number of campaigns, new products and public debates to ensure the wider public are a fundamental part of our engagement plans.

Together the Alliance members aim to be more strategic in the asks of regulators and policy makers in calling for and seeing through the changes needed to enable a fairer, stronger and more sustainable market for fair finance provision.

Additionally, the Alliance seeks to deliver greater impact through individual members actions by collectively getting behind those actions and doing so in a more strategic, sequenced way.

Fair finance means the provider of that finance is not unfairly targeting consumers with a product they can’t afford. The act responsibly and prioritise the need of the consumer over the need of a shareholder or general profit. We believe credit is a good thing when delivered fairly and responsibly. For those people where credit is not the answer, there should be other support systems in place, a strong safety net. The Alliance is also developing actions for this.

Use the Contact Us page to tell us more about your business, the social impact and challenges and opportunities.

The Alliance is UK wide with extensive membership from Scotland, England and Wales and plans for further engagement from partners based in Northern Ireland. Over two-thirds of Alliance members have a UK wide remit. The Alliance also includes international partners though our primary social impact is UK focussed. This includes having nation specific impact where devolution presents different opportunities for impact.