MAS defies MPs by refusing to slash its multi-million pound marketing budget

Carmen Reichman
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The industry-funded Money Advice Service (MAS) has ignored calls by MPs to cut its marketing budget, saying it needs the multi-million pound pot to "encourage people to take action" on financial matters.

Only two weeks ago the MAS was branded "not fit for purpose" by a Treasury sub-committee of MPs, which called for an urgent independent review into the service and a possible scrapping of it altogether. The committeee had found that the MAS was failing on five counts, including spending too much money on marketing, not reaching consumers effectively and duplicating other services instead of collaborating with them. However in its business plan proposal the MAS said it would keep its marketing budget at £12.68m to be spent on "a range of activity, from campaigns to digital marketing, a...

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