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Frequently Asked Questions

RELEASE 4 (Consolidated)

PART 1 – linked to Pilot Agencies Guidance Notes issued 7 September 2011

Issued 22 September 2011

Q001  If we take part in the pilot, will we have to hold clients’ funds?

No, if a case is referred to Payplan, or use is made of Payplan’s disbursement system, the client will make payments into a Payplan account. Payplan will then distribute these funds to creditors. The Payplan account is ‘ring fenced’, so that client monies are protected.

Q002  What if I’m currently using a case management system other than AdvicePro?

AdvicePro must be used for the pilot, so you will either have to change your case management system, or enter data in parallel into your current case management system and AdvicePro.

Q003  Do I need to process all my debt cases through AdvicePro?

We will expect that all cases handled by pilot agencies will be recorded in AdvicePro where the option selected by the client is a DMP, IVA, Trust Deed, low offer or token payment (with the agreement of the client). We are looking to have a range of small to large agencies involved in the pilot, so there will be no minimum number of referrals specified.

Q004  When will agencies be able to benefit from Fair Shares income?

Referrals and payment distribution will not attract return of Fair Share contribution to the agencies or AdviceUK during the lifetime of the pilot. However, the potential of Fair Share contributions will be assessed during the pilot to test the viability of funding debt advice delivery longer term.

Q005  Who is providing the funds that will be paid to pilot agencies?

All funds that will be paid to agencies during the pilot are generously being provided by Friends Provident Foundation as part of the overall project funding.

Q006  Will the use of AdvicePro and Payplan during the pilot affect the options being offered to clients?

It is essential that during the pilot all advice provided continues to be in the best interests of the client, and is transparent and impartial so that clients are able to make informed decisions about the best way of resolving their debt problems.

Q007  Can you quantify how much extra work we will have to do if we take part in the pilot?

The amount of extra work required will depend on your organisation, its procedures and current infrastructure. In order to help you work out the additional work involved, we have identified the following areas. This is not an exhaustive list and more activities may be identified during the life of the pilot:

Set Up

AdvicePro:

  • If not currently used: implementation involving initial configuration, adviser training, and changes to procedures to fit with AdvicePro
  • If currently used: upgrade to Release 4 and training as necessary
  • Possible changes to configuration to capture additional information as required for the pilot

Pilot Preparation:

  • Changes to operational procedures to fit with the required processing of cases for the pilot. This includes referrals to Payplan and use of Payplan’s disbursement system
  • Training of advisers in changes to procedures

During the Pilot

Operations:

  • Some additional work likely in capturing client information and presenting options to the client
  • First live usage of the interface between AdvicePro and Payplan, which will need careful monitoring (although we will test it thoroughly before releasing it the pilot agencies)
  • Use of Payplan’s disbursement system for low offers and token payments
  • Dealing with exceptions, such as underpayments to Payplan where a low offer / token payment arrangement has been set up
  • Implementation of revised versions of procedures, if interim evaluations of progress indicate that changes need to be made

Evaluation

While the pilot is in progress:

  • Regular feedback: likely to be monthly reporting on how processes are working for clients, advisers and the agency
  • Collection of data: we will automate some of this through AdvicePro and Payplan, but other agency data such as overall client option selections will need to be provided

Interim and final evaluation – AdviceUK and an independent evaluator will seek feedback through methods that are likely to include:

  • Adviser interviews
  • Client interviews
  • Analysis of agency financial data (for debt advice services): income and expenditure, direct and indirect costs
  • Analysis of other agency data: supervisor time, agency time, appointments per client etc.
  • Examining the output of the agency’s quality assurance system
  • Examining complaints records and insurance claims
  • Adviser questionnaires
  • Client feedback questionnaires
  • Review of agency procedures
  • Focus groups

Q008  Are Citizen Advice Bureaux eligible to take part in the pilot?

Citizens Advice and AdviceUK have agreed that bureaux are not eligible and should therefore not apply. This is because the pilot project mandates the use of the AdvicePro case management system.

Q009  Who will the pilot evaluation be shared with?

An independent evaluator will produce a report at the end of the pilot, evaluating its success. This will be published by Friends Provident Foundation and we plan to disseminate the results widely to interested parties. However, we will maintain anonymity for clients and advisers throughout, and we will acknowledge the overall contribution of the specific agencies involved in the pilot.

Q010  Would involvement in the pilot affect our LSC funding position?

We recommend that each agency checks for itself the impact of participation on its LSC funding position. The following notes may help.

For agencies providing services under the LSC Legal Help Scheme, payments from the LSC are partly dependent on when Controlled Work matters are considered to be completed (LSC Standard Civil Contract para 3.82 (d) http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/docs/civil_contracting/Civil_Specification_(Oct_11).pdf ). We would expect that the principles of closure of matters involving debt advice are unchanged for the various debt advice options:

DMP / IVA / Trust Deed          Ownership of these cases will be handed over to Payplan, closing the agency’s involvement with the client

Low offers / token payments  These cases continue to be owned by the agencies and there may be arrangements to revisit the case with the client within 6 months. Given para 3.47 (a) of the LSC Standard Civil Contract, this may preclude closing the Matter. But we would expect that this is no different from current arrangements.

Other options                       These are unaffected by the pilot so current practices can continue unchanged.

PART 2 – Responses to questions related to the role of independent evaluator

2.1     Issued 7 November 2011

Project timing

Q011  Are all pilot agencies confirmed, and could we have the final list?

The confirmed list of pilot agencies has now been published on our website: http://www.adviceuk.org.uk/projects-and-resources/money-advice/sustainable_debt_advice

Q012  What stage is the pilot implementation at, and is there a clear idea of the service delivery start date?

Pilot implementation is at an early stage, with the agencies to be involved only recently confirmed and infrastructure development work in progress. Our target is for service delivery at pilot agencies to commence from the beginning of January 2012, so the pilot will run for the full year. However, this is dependent on the completion of the infrastructure development work, and we do not yet have a confirmed date for this, so there may be a delay to the start of the service. Also, it is likely that some of the additional services, such as integration with a basic bank account application process, may not be available from the start of the pilot, but will be phased in during the life of the pilot.

Project coordination

Q013  What is the preferred format and timing for the progress reports from the evaluator to AdviceUK?

A summary progress report should be provided to AdviceUK on a monthly basis, for months when the evaluator has planned to carry out activities. This can be WORD, PDF or other format as appropriate. We would expect it to cover progress in the previous month, plans for the forthcoming month, and any issues and risks.

Data collection

Q014  Are additional funds available to offer to agencies or individuals as incentives (for instance, for interviews or questionnaire facilitation)?

The pilot agencies have already committed to carrying out activities in support of evaluation:

Whilst the pilot is in progress:

  • Providing regular feedback: likely to be monthly reporting on how processes are working for clients, advisers and the agency
  • Collecting data: we will automate some of this through AdvicePro and Payplan, but other agency data such as overall client option selections will need to be provided

 

Interim and final evaluation – AdviceUK and an independent evaluator will seek feedback through methods that are likely to include:

  • Adviser interviews
  • Client interviews
  • Analysis of agency financial data (for debt advice services): income and expenditure, direct and indirect costs
  • Analysis of other agency data: supervisor time, agency time, appointments per client etc.
  • Examining the output of the agency’s quality assurance system
  • Examining complaints records and insurance claims
  • Adviser questionnaires
  • Client feedback questionnaires
  • Review of agency procedures
  • Focus groups

Funding that we have already agreed to provide to pilot agencies is intended to cover their additional time and resources in carrying out these activities. If you believe that there are other activities that are required by pilot agencies or their clients, or additional incentives are required, please explain this in your tender.

Data management and access

Q015  Will we have access to AdvicePro data centrally, or will we be reliant on reports sent through from individual agencies?

Subject to security and access considerations, it should be possible to make access to AdvicePro data available to the evaluator centrally.

Q016  Are any of the agencies starting to use AdvicePro at the start of the pilot?

Of the nine pilot agencies selected, three are already using AdvicePro and the Debt module. For the six agencies that are new to AdvicePro, we are making it available straightaway and have started a training and implementation programme with the intention that they are all live with AdvicePro by mid-December. This will mean that when the pilot processes and integration with Payplan become available, all agencies will already be conversant with the normal running of AdvicePro.

2.2     Issued 9 November 2011

Q017  Can you outline how the contributions are being divided between Payplan, the advice agency and the creditor – e.g. is Payplan taking less of a cut than normal and passing it on to the advice agency or is the creditor receiving less of a contribution than normal?

During the course of the pilot we are not planning any distribution of Fair Shares contributions from Payplan to the advice agencies. It is intended that an outcome of the pilot is an agreement on future Fair Shares distributions between Payplan, the advice agencies and creditors, if the model is rolled out more widely.

Q018  How many advice agencies applied to be part of the pilot? This gives us a good idea of residual interest in the scheme.

About 40 agencies applied, indicating a very strong residual interest.

Q019  Your ITT, under Appendix A, mentions an alternative scheme being piloted by the Citizen’s Advice Bureaux. Is this just their standard free debt management advice or is there something else that they are piloting/developing?

Citizens Advice’s press release in relation to the scheme they are piloting can be found here: http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/pressoffice/press_index/press_20101111.htm . For more information, contact Citizens Advice.

Q020  Payplan are clearly one of the key stakeholders in this process and it would be important to gather information and views from them to inform the evaluation findings. Do you expect Payplan to be willing to provide information and any key stakeholders from Payplan to take part in the evaluation?

We expect Payplan to provide analyses of cases processed and of the associated finances. We are also confident that they will be willing to provide their views of the pilot, as part of the evaluation process.

Q021  Your ITT, Appendix A, mentions client feedback questionnaires. Are these a standard questionnaire administered after providing a service or is it something that the evaluator could help develop bespoke to inform this evaluation? This will affect whether we propose to conduct an additional questionnaire amongst clients or not.

The evaluator is encouraged to help develop a bespoke client questionnaire that will inform evaluation. Note that it may only be practical for a random selection of clients to complete these questionnaires, and the questionnaires may need to fit with feedback questionnaires that an agency is already using.

Q022  Your ITT, Appendix A, also mentions reviewing a random selection of cases to see if the advice has changed – is this something you plan to do as standard and the evaluator will use the results in the evaluation? Or is this a suggested method of data collection that you would like the evaluator to consider?

The AdviceUK project intends to carry out some random selections of cases and reviews, and any results will be shared with the evaluator. But this monitoring may not have the depth and rigor required by the evaluator.

Note that as part of your tender, we are interested in your proposals for what should be covered as part of monitoring by the AdviceUK project, and what activities should be carried out by the evaluator. Also, it is expected that at an early stage in the engagement the evaluator will provide input to the completion of the monitoring framework, which has been drafted in Appendix A of the ITT.

Q023  Your ITT, Appendix A, mentions receiving a regular feedback report from the agency manager. Is the plan for this to be informal or will there be a formal process and pro forma which the manager has to complete? If so, will the evaluator be able to input in to the development of the pro forma to ensure it captures information useful for the evaluation?

We are expecting that agency managers will regularly provide feedback through the completion of a pro forma report. Details of this report are not yet defined, and we would welcome input from the evaluator, so that it captures information for both monitoring and evaluation purposes.

2.3     Issued 10 November 2011

Q024  For each pilot site, do you know the expected number of clients that are likely to participate? And of these what proportion are likely to go via Payplan and what proportion are likely to go via the "token" payments system?

Agencies involved in the pilot range from those with under 300 new clients p.a., up to those with over 2,000 new clients p.a.. In total, the 9 pilot agencies expect approximately 10,000 new clients in 2012. The proportion likely to be referred to Payplan, and those eligible for token payment / low offer debt payment solutions will vary considerably between agency, as they deal with a variety of client bases. Overall, as preliminary estimates, we anticipate up to 20% of clients will be referred to Payplan for a DMP, IVA or TD solution, and 40 – 50% of clients will be eligible for a token payment / low offer solution.

Q025  Do you know how many advisers will work on the pilot for each pilot site?

We estimate that across the pilot agencies there will be a total of approximately 50 advisers involved (including volunteers), 10 managers and 30 support and admin staff. The smallest agency will only have about 2 staff involved, with the largest agencies having over 20 staff involved.

Q026  Do you have an estimate of how many different creditors will be part of this pilot?

No we do not have an estimate and this will depend on the case mix from the pilot agencies.

Q027  Could you outline what organisations are on the Project Advisory Group?

The PAG includes representatives of our funding organisation, the credit industry, regulatory bodies, Payplan, professional bodies, pilot agencies, academics and AdviceUK – about 10 people in total.