The Money Advice Service has published its business plan for 2012/13 which reveals it plans to spend £34.5m on providing debt advice.

This money will come from the Financial Services Authority’s levy on financial services firms.

Some £32.3m will be spent on continuing frontline services with consumers while £2.2m will be used for long-term development of the service, staffing and marketing of the debt advice service.

The MAS agreed to provide debt advice earlier this year following a Government request and will take over responsibility from advice services such as Citizens Advice funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

It hopes to reach 150,000 customers with the service, 50,000 more than the current figure.

It is estimated 2.1m will actively seek debt advice while a further 2.2m would benefit from it but do not proactively seek it.

Money Advice Service chairman Gerald Lemos said: “High quality debt advice can transform the lives of people in financial crisis. It can also result in benefits for creditors. We want to bring greater coherence, consistency and sustainability of funding to the fragmented provision of debt advice currently available to those most in need.”

Also in the Business Plan the service revealed plans to target 1.9m people in 2012/13 including 88,000 in person and 90,000 via contact centres.

The figures are the first steps in a move to have 11.3m users per year by 2016/17.

To read the full business plan click here and to read the debt-advice specific plan click here.