Up until August 2006, the UK’s biggest debt counselling charity delivered help via a telephone helpline that was staffed 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday. If the caller needed advice beyond what the helpline adviser could provide, an appointment was booked with a debt counsellor, but this could take several weeks. Increasing demand on the helpline created bottlenecks in the process, and in 2004 a survey of users showed that three in five felt the appointment process needed to be improved.

For the uninitiated, IT can be scary, intimidating, and expensive. But there are plenty of places charities and other civil society organisations can go for free or cheap advice, hardware and software. By Tania Mason