Research conducted jointly by the website and Financial Mail found that 66% are planning job cuts, and just over half have had their credit facilities cut by their bankers.

There has long been a sense of pessimism in the small business sector, but the reality could be even worse, according to Nick Palin, the director of finance at the Forum of Private Business (FPB). He said, “Each week the scale of the economic downturn appears to reach new depths…The FPB estimates that as many as 200,000 firms could be forced to close”.

Business owners are undertaking cost cutting measures such as making staff redundant and cutting staff working hours, and this trend shows no sign of slowing.

Palin also said, “Many small businesses are finding they are unable to borrow from the major lenders which, despite pressure from the government and the small business lobby are often still bracketing all small firms as high risk. Some are even having existing overdraft agreements removed completely and with little warning”.

The bishops of Winchester, Hulme, Durham, Manchester and Carlisle were reported in the Sunday Telegraph as saying that the UK was beset by family breakdown, debt and poverty. 

The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Reverend Nigel McCulloch claimed that the government “encouraged greed and a love of money that the Bible says is the root of all evil”. Separately, the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, the Bishop of Hulme, accused the government of telling people to spend more, which he says is “irresponsible” and morally suspect”.

When asked for his opinion, Cardinal Murphy O’Connor said he was “not too happy with the blame game…If we are going to accuse people of immorality it is much further than the government, it is the whole country.” He went on to say, “Obviously, governments have a particular responsibility but so have the people, so have the cities, so have the communities; I always think that a change of heart begins locally. You can’t bring it about just by government”.

When asked about the claim by one of the bishops that that the government had been “beguiled by money”, he replied, “I do not think that is the whole truth at all”.

The Ireland-based company announced the move this morning, and most of its 10 UK subsidiaries will be placed in administration later today. The UK brands include Royal Doulton.

The company was forced to appoint the receiver Deloitte after it failed to make debt repayments due on January 2nd, and now the non-executive chairman, Sir Anthony O’Reilly, faces losses of millions of pounds.

1900 people are employed by Waterford Wedgewood in the UK, mainly at its manufacturing plant at Barlaston, Stoke on Trent and at other offices and retail outlets. 800 staff are also employed in Ireland. In addition, a further 5000 staff are employed in other subsiduaries in countries including Germany, Canada, Australia, Indonesia and the USA, however it is not thought these staff will be affected.

The Waterford Wedgewood chief executive, David Sculley, said that although he was disappointed, he was optimistic that a buyer would be found for the business, and that discussions are ongoing.

Pensioners now have lower disposable incomes, due in part to the cost of essential services rising. Gas and electricity have risen in excess of 40% this year. Many are concerned about living on the breadline, with 46% worried about their declining buying power. In addition, one in eight plan to continue working past retirement age to top up their income.

Nigel Barlow of Just Retirement said, “With unemployment figures estimated to reach two million by December, it is possible that pensioners will find it harder than ever to find work. The likelihood is that poverty among pensioners is set to spiral out of control”.

Over 55s are often using credit cards, loans and overdrafts to pay bills, and the average credit card debt for the age goup is over £8000 (according to a sperate study from Key Retirement Solutions).

The director of policy for Citizens Advice, Teresa Pritchard, is reported as saying that the organisation has had a huge increase in consumers seeking advice on mney matters over the last ten years. Debt and money matters have become the top area for the service, with advisers dealing with an average of 6500 problems each day,

“We have been in the trenches for too long on debt. It is an endless battle helping people resolve debt problems.

“Half a million people came to see us about debt problems last year and since 1997 the number of debt problems we are dealing with has increased by more than 100 per cent.”, said Ms Pritchard.

She went on to say that the new initiative is aimed at preventing people getting into debt. This will be acheived by educating people by working with local authorities, schools, social landlords and other organisations.

Banks are shoring up their lending positions, and are now ever quicker to seek court orders which would allow them to secure debt against property.

The number of these court order applications rose 42% in 2007 to almost 132,000, and the figure is expected to increase further this year. If successful, the lender is granted a charging order, which, in effect, secures the debt against the home of the borrower. When the house is sold, the lender is repaid from the proceeds.

The figures quoted above were obtained by the BBC, and come from internal Ministry of Justice reports. They also show a growing trend of lending criteria being tightened, while at the same time bankruptcy petitions have almost doubled in four years.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling has urged lenders to help struggling borrowers, and Philip Hammond (the Shadow Treasury Chief Secretary) claims that UK personal debt is increasing by £1 million every five minutes.

Unbiased, an indedendent financial advisor website, claims that workers toil until March 10th to service the interest on unsecured borrowing. This is before any reduction in the actual amount owed. This is a big increase from the 2007 ‘Debt Freedom Day’, which was 1st February.

This is due to an increase of 10% in personal debt and also an increase of 6% in the interest charged - the amount owed in personal loans has jumped to £9.8 billion this year. Interest charged on personal loans has risen by 0.5%, meaning borrowers now face a total interest bill of around £1.5 billion.

The savings products manager at Co-operative Bank, Scott McPhail, has revealed that Britons spend 13 billion hours a year worrying about debt. He said, “It is worryingly clear from the research that the vast majority of UK adults are deeply concerned about their finances, with rising levels of debt and inadequate saving provisions responsible for countless sleepless nights nationwide.”

Although the survey was from a small sample of just 573 mortgage holders, the FSA has taken the results seriously enough to plan the launch of a £2 million advertising campaign and an advice guide.

Many fixed rate mortgage deals are coming to an end this year, and mortgage holders may find they are unable to find a new deal at similar interest rates. This is because many mortgage products have been withdrawn by lenders as a result of the global credit crisis.

It is this group of  people on expiring fixed rate mortgages which is causing most concern to the FSA, and they will be targeted by the new campaign.

The new guide will suggest that people budget properly, and consider ways to make savings well ahead of their mortgage deal expiring.

Meanwhile, in a seperate report carried out for the supermarket firm Asda, it has been stated that the average family is about £5 per week worse off than this time last year because of increased food and fuel costs. 

Many of these firms are using aggressive, yet legal, collection methods, and now there are calls for a clamp-down on collectors.

Yet there are fears that collection agencies will be given even more power when the details of a new Tribunals, Courts and Enforcements Act are unveiled by the government in May. Bailiffs may be given powers to break into homes and use force to remove goods.

The Ministry of Justice has claimed that such powers would only be granted once a regulatory framework for bailiffs has been put in place, and would only be used in ’strictly controlled circumstances’.  The Citizens’ Advice Bureau is due to meet the Ministry of Justice shortly to discuss the proposals.

Debtors had a total of 796,528 county court judgements (CCJs) handed down against them in 2007, a rise of 48% since 2004, while the debt collection agency Interim Justicia made group profits of around £37 million. The company expects profits to rise as more people struggle with debts: “We are looking forward to controlled sustainable growth… there’s a lot of potential in this market.”

Savings bank ING Direct, which published the report, says that many parents are keeping the savings a secret because they fear that if their offspring were aware of the safety net they would spend even more.

Other reasons given for keeping the savings secret were to teach children the value of money and how to manage on a budget before getting a job.

Many parents are looking ahead and beginning to save while their children are still at primary school, and around 30% claim they make “huge sacrifices” to put money aside. In some cases parents are even remortgaging their homes and cutting down on social and leisure activities in order to bump up savings balances.

But the secrecy is not always on one side. Over 40% of students admitted to having debts which they had not told their parents about - on average around £5000. Ways in which they raise more money is to take out more than one bank account with an overdraft facility, as well as loans and credit cards.

Reasons given for keeping debts a secret ranged from not wanting to worry parents to being embarrassed about being in the red.