The changing trends also reflected a new Work and Income policy in March 2011 requiring people to get budget advice before they could get more than two food grants in a year.
That change, plus the recession, caused a huge jump in budgeting service clients from 39,900 in the year to June 2011 to 52,800 in the following year. Client numbers have eased back gradually since then to just 45,000 in the latest year.
"Work and Income referrals have dropped off a bit because sometimes Work and Income was sending the same people back to us over and over again when we had already done an assessment," Ms Fox said. ""That was a waste of everybody's time, so we have dropped off."
She said budgeters might also be seeing people sooner, before their debts reached crisis levels.
"Maybe we are working better with external agencies to get people to us quicker before it gets so bad," she said.
The agencies' annual statistics show that the numbers of both paid and unpaid budget advisers have also fallen slightly from peaks of 374 paid and 512 voluntary advisers in the year to June 2013 to 364 paid and 459 voluntary advisers in the latest year.
Ms Fox said that did not reflect any loss of agencies to a rival Associated Budgeting Consultants group led by Mangere budget adviser Darryl Evans and representing 11 Auckland-based services.
"We haven't lost any members in Auckland [in the past year]," Ms Fox said.
"We had two members resign because they didn't have the capacity to do budgeting any more - Mangere Citizens Advice Bureau because of money, and Te Tai Awa O Te Ora in South Auckland, which has withdrawn this year because they have other priorities. We have had increases in the rest of the country."
The figures show that, although overdue debt declined, the total debt owed by budget service clients grew from an average of $21,800 a year ago to $25,500 this June, reflecting the reduced numbers of beneficiaries and a relative increase in working families with mortgages.
"During the recession the banks were quite conservative in who they loaned to," Ms Fox said. Average total debt actually dropped from $24,300 in June 2011 to $20,300 a year later, and has only recovered in the latest year.
"I think there has been a bit of an easing up in lending," she said.
Maori families have been consistently the largest group using budgeting services in each of the past five years, including 44 per cent of all clients in the latest year.
Another 38 per cent were European, 11 per cent were of Pacific ethnicities and only 1 per cent were Asian.
Average arrears owed by budgeting clients
14-15 $3,740.09
13-14 $4,012.90
12-13 $3,790.41
11-12 $5,072.57
10-11 $4,435.38
09-10 $4,917.04
08-09 $4,472.87
07-08 $4,259.82
06-07 $5,126.68
05-06 $6,142.49
04-05 $4,688.70
03-04 $5,580.13
02-03 $4,917.35
01-02 $4,126.55
00-01 $3,001.00
Source: Federation of Family Budgeting Services
