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  • Where we stand on...

Where we stand on...

We note that some of the pressures currently on members (in England and Wales primarily) in the funding, regulation and socio-economic environment include:

  • The general move from grant aid to competitive tendering for contracts to deliver advice and the consequent pressure on members to be more commercial/innovative

  • The pressure to work in partnership or to form consortia or merge that often comes with grant aid criteria and competitive tenders

  • The uncertainty of funding for many members as funding for advice is not a statutory duty, with local authority cuts a threat for some members in the recession       

  • The increasing importance of Local Area Agreements (LAAs) as the basis for determining where funding goes  

  • The lack of advice specific indicators within LAAs, low level of advice sector engagement with Local Strategic Partnerships and LAA processes and shortage of skills/resources advice services have with which to influence LAAs  

  • The (disproportionate) influence of the Legal Services Commission on local authority approaches to advice funding – including joint commissioning of Community Legal Advice Services (CLAS) – sometimes referred to as CLACs and CLANs 

  • The top-down imposition of structures and delivery methods that often comes with advice contracts and CLAS

  • The threat of a move away from independence and community based and diverse provision that competitive tendering for contracts often represents as it favours larger charities or private companies   

  • The administrative burden and risk that contracts often place on voluntary sector advice organisations    

  • Too much focus on outputs and transactions rather than outcomes and micro-management from funders and commissioners  

  • Changes to the CLS Quality Mark at General Help level, with audit fees introduced from April 2009 and the difficulty that many members will have in maintaining the QM as a result. CABx have a certain competitive advantage because they do not have to pay for their QM audit – Citizens Advice provides this 

  • The increasing complexity of funding applications

  • Legal Aid reforms (fixed fees, proposals for commissioning from 2010 onwards) that affect less than 10% of members but are causing many of them severe financial difficulties, increased admin and risk and impacting on working in the interests of clients       

  • The recession, which has increased demand, changed the nature of demand and client profiles, led to some new funding but also cuts in funding and possibly increases the supply of a skilled work/volunteer force for advice

Other pressures exist and particular issues will pertain to particular types or segments of membership – the above is not an exhaustive list. Pressures and issues will also change over time. We will regularly review these pressures and issues and our policy response.

And this is what we think….

In general

We think that current Government strategy for advice services (expressed most clearly in the Legal services Commission’s strategy “Making Legal Rights a Reality”), coupled with Legal Aid reforms and changes in local authority funding arrangements pose a huge threat to the independence and diversity of advice services.

A diverse range of independent advice is essential to ensure equality of access, provision and community cohesion. Diversity is threatened by competitive procurement that demands generic services at the lowest cost per transaction.

An independent voluntary sector and availability of independent advice, free from state control and interference, is a measure of liberty, democracy and an enlightened state. Civil liberties and human rights are at stake.

There is a real danger that independent advice services are being co-opted by the local or national state via procurement and contractual conditions – such as a requirement to carry the Government brand ‘Community Legal Advice’ if running a CLAS – CLAC or CLAN

Improvements are needed in advice services. There are gaps in provision. Access is uneven. Services are often not coordinated and integrated. However, the imposition of top-down, jointly commissioned ‘solutions’ and reforms will not necessarily improve services. Most of the changes that the Government, Legal Services Commission and local authorities have imposed recently – including CLAS, legal aid reforms and moves from grants to contracts – are simply means to more tightly control budgets and tidy up or fix services are necessarily broken. Competition for contracts is not the way to build collaborative networks of provision. People in need of independent advice are the ultimate losers.

As our report It’s the System Stupid! Radically Reforming Advice pointed out, there is a need to address the large scale waste in the wider system of public administration that surrounds and causes demand for independent advice services. The report also showed that contractual conditions are hindering independent advice services from meeting client needs. The Government’s strategy for advice services contains no method for improvement – only the means to command and control. Systems Thinking (the approach advocated by the above report) offers a method. It should be the fundamental basis on which advice services are designed and improved. Better advice should be built on cooperation and partnership and by understanding and meeting client need.

CLAS – or CLACs and CLANs

We’re not opposed to the concept of joined up and integrated services and funding streams. The problem lies in the means by which such a concept is achieved.

What we have seen so far have been inadequate needs analyses that have not taken into account local knowledge of need and access issues and unworkable and under-funded service specifications. The competitive tendering process pits agencies against each other and threatens to lead to the loss of community-based, independent advice services in favour of a large super-centre or, at best, a consortium dominated by large agencies or firms. CLA 'Networks' imply consortia but in practice we fear that large single entities would have a distinct advantage in the bidding process. The CLAS experiment has not yet been evaluated and the results of the current study by the Legal Services Research Centre should be awaited before further development.

A better approach would be to work with existing advice providers collaboratively to build workable local solutions to clearly identified problems.

To read more about our views on CLACs and CLANs click here.

Funding: commissioning, grants and procurement

We think the general trend towards the introduction of competition for advice service contracts is based on a seriously flawed view that this will lead to improved services and better value for money. We’re behind criticisms made by the New Economics Foundation (nef) who exposed the myths behind this approach in their 2007 report Unintended Consequences. We are working with nef to demonstrate an alternative, more intelligent and ‘public benefit’ approach to commissioning - primarily in Manchester. This approach argues that commissioners should focus on the outcomes that they want for local people/beneficiaries and not concentrate on inputs and outputs.

There is great value in grant aid. It offers flexibility for the funder and funded agency to review services in response to changing needs and circumstances without going through a new tendering process that meets competition and procurement rules. We are members of the Local Grants Forum that is pushing this line. We have also supported the more progressive approach being taken by some local authorities such as LB Tower Hamlets, which worked in partnership with advice agencies before commissioning services and funding them via grant aid.

To read more about our work on funding and commissioning (our BOLD Project), click here.

Quality

Overly prescriptive organisational standards, telling organisations how to do this and that, auditing and inspection regimes and badges for the window are no guarantee of good advice. Many of the quality regimes currently in use in the advice sector, including the Community Legal Service Quality Mark, can actually create a lot of work for little value for the client. They are often based on received wisdom that doing things in a certain way is good practice and seek standardisation and a one-size-fits-all approach.

The best way to ensure quality services is to build quality into the system of delivery – stripping out practices and procedures that offer no value to the client.

If quality standards and inspections are required by funders and commissioners, they should (a) pay for them and (b) they should be as light touch as possible and (c) offer support for smaller organisations to achieve them.

Legal Aid Reforms

Reforms introduced in October 2007, when up front payments to deliver so many hours of legaal advice were replaced by fixed fees per case, to be climed in arrears have placed agencies that hold legal aid contracts in a financially risky position. Many are stuggling to survive, have used reserves to finance the change and have had to change the way they work – often to the detriment of clients.  Further changes planned for 2010 represent major threats for many of our members. They will be required to deliver a wider range of advice over wider areas, merge or form consortia as the Legal Services Commission seeks to drastically reduce the number of contracts it gives and fund 'super-centres'.

We think legal aid reforms have been harmful to voluntary sector agencies in particular and have caused huge upheaval and cost for very little or no return in terms of expanded legal aid provision and evidence of 'dumbing-down' and reduced service for clients. We have called for the reforms to be scrapped and at least for the bureaucracy that has surrounded them to be reduced.

We have called for 2010 commissioning plans to be scrapped as they stand. The timetable for changes should be delayed by to enable existing reforms and CLAS to be evaluated before further change is implemented and to allow time for agencies to adjust and prepare for the new requirements.

To read the latest about 2010 commissioning, click here.

The recession

We have called for more government funding for advice but for this to be spread fairly across the advice sector and to be used intelligently. We were concerned that additional £15m funding for money advice was given to CABx and Money Advice Trust in late 2008 and bypassed AdviceUK members.

New funding is needed urgently to help agencies providing debt, housing and employment advice respond to increased and changing demand. New funding should not tie agencies down to inflexible targets. It should be used wisely to allow preventative work and early intervention and provide sustainable advice services.

For further information


Phil Jew
Head of Policy & Campaigns
020 7469 5700
phil.jew@adviceuk.org.uk

David Hawkes
National Money Advice Coordinator
020 7469 5700
david.hawkes@adviceuk.org.uk

Attached documents