We have a page on The Hyde Group's website and we also have a blog maintained by the training team and some young learners from The Money House.

Every month we have three cohorts for our 5 day courses so if you're reading this in September or later the 300 figure is out of date!

If you can't visualise what our training looks like, we've made loads of videos that you can see here

https://themoneyhouseblog.wordpress.com/category/watch-our-videos/

We've had over 1500 views of last year's deck up to now. Have a look here. http://www.haikudeck.com/p/aMoZj0bJhS

According to our data, the average rent arrears for tenants aged 16-25 was £650. For young people who took part in our evaluation after completing The Money House, the average arrears were just £78.

The £78 average arrears figure came from an analysis of the rent accounts of 10 former learners fromThe Money House.

We have decided not to disclose the names of the landlords who helped us to analyse the rent data publicly but if you would like to know details like this please contact us.

Tom.gardiner@hyde-housing.co.uk

Data protection laws prevent the sharing of individual rent accounts, so the landlords conducted this analysis for us.

344 16-25 yr olds had tenancies but HAD NOT attended the Money House

These are percentages for the 63 young people who had tenancies and had attended The Money House. All these figures relate to the position of their rent accounts at least 1 year after they completed training at The Money House.

Arrears of over £500 are likely to prompt the Landlord to start legal proceedings to evict the tenant leading to stress for the tenant and added costs for the Landlord.

Arrears of less than £100 are given a much lighter touch by landlords. Accounts that stay like this are much cheaper to manage for the Landlord.

People who owe more than £100 cost more as landlords have to take more action against them (letters, phone calls, court action)

This is a fantastic result for us. Most of our standard evaluation toolkit is geared towards qualitative data relating to how young people feel about their financial confidence. This data shows that we are also making a significant and measurable difference to the finances of our graduates, helping them to manage better and helping landlords reduce the costs of chasing debt.

Although our graduates still get into arrears (not surprising given all are living independently while in low paid work or on benefits) they keep out of high arrears and manage their accounts well, keeping in touch with their landlords....just like we taught them to!

We are actively seeking many funding opportunities to sustain and expand our project, if you or someone you know would like to find out how you could support us please do get in touch.

If you work for a local authority and would like to run a version of this course where you are then we'd love to hear from you.

Even if you don't fit either of the two categories above but you want to find out more, contact us for details of our next open day.

We're not the only ones who are excited about The Money House and it's potential. Anna Whalen is Youth Homelessness Advisor at St Basil's www.stbasils.org.uk . Part of Anna's role is funded by the Dept for Communities and Local Government who rely on St Basil's for national advice on youth homelessness. Here's what Anna had to say about The Money House after coming to an open day in May 2015.

"It's not often I come away from a visit to a local project immediately thinking about how to get it national coverage and how it could be replicated the length and breadth of the country.

Affordability is increasingly a key concern for local authorities, for Registered Providers and private landlords, as well as young people. One part of that jigsaw is landlords concern about young people as tenants - how can they manage on a low income - what sort of risk do they present financially? Those who have the financial skills to manage successfully on a low income are likely to be viewed more positively and be able to manage as young tenants. The outcomes from The Money House experience, in relation to arrears, evidence this so clearly.

The Money House model is relevant to young people, no matter what sort of local authority area they live in. It can be used for living in
social and private rented housing. It can, as we heard, also encourage young people to stay at home for longer if they can. It teaches so much
more than simple budgeting.

In short The Money House model is without
doubt - and by a long way - the most comprehensive programme for helping young people understand and manage their financial affairs and go forward, knowing what the challenges are and how to deal with them."

We have scheduled a full Cost benefit analysis on The Money House this Autumn. The CBA will be based on the New Economy model for evaluations endorsed by HM Treasury.