The Deciding Time for Advice?

Will you take a leap of faith or a methodical approach?

The Early Action Task Force's second report The Deciding Time, identifies 6 obstacles in the way of a more preventative, early action approach to tackling the problems and multiple disadvantages that blight many people's lives and cost the country £billions. It recommends a fundamental shift from short-term, crisis interventions to investment in services and initiatives that provide longer-term, sustainable solutions. The Task Force talks about ten year tests of plans and the impact over the decade, incentives and sanctions to break down 'silos' and encourage preventative approaches. The report challenges the third sector, including advice services to think differently and lead the transition, with a special focus on advice provided by Matthew Smerdon and Joe Randall from the Baring Foundation.

Many people working in advice services (in England at least) face their own 'deciding time' at present with bids for the Advice Services Transition Fund required in January. The Cabinet Office and Big Lottery place an emphasis on early intervention and prevention in the Fund. Despite reservations about the condition and criteria for the Fund, it does provide the advice sector with an opportunity to, as stated in a blog for Legal Voice "move to a situation where advice services do better things. Changing the role and point of intervention of advice services – giving them a greater role in preventing failure, improving systems and people’s lives and in so doing saving public money, offers a chance to make the transition to sustainable services."

At the launch of The Deciding Time, all commentators referred to systemic failure. Louise Casey, Head of the Troubled Families Team at the Department for Communities and Local Government, noted that a troubled system runs alongside troubled families. Getting to the root of problems is the key, she said.

The one thing that we believe has not been explicitly identified by the Task Force as an obstacle and building block for an early action approach and tackling systemic failure is method (or lack of it). There is one method that provides us with the knowledge of the systems with which advice services work and the helps us to understand and tackle the root causes of demand for advice. We are firm advocates (and practitioners) of Vanguard Method for systems thinking as a basis for service design and delivery. Without a method we may scramble around in the dark for ways to transform our services.

By way of illustration, in a recent letter to Department for Work and Pensions about Personal Independence Payment (PIP) implementation we said:

"We were......dismayed to see your consultation with frontline agencies that proposes starting with a blank piece of paper. This is a nonsensical approach and it will never enable the department to understand demand for its services and its causes. There is only one sensible way you can design PIP implementation – or indeed any other delivery system, and that is to go and study demand and build a base of knowledge about what your customers need – real people, placing real demands on the service in real time.

With a robust understanding of what matters to people you can then set up a service that aims to deliver only and exactly that. By experimenting and using data that helps you see what works and what doesn't, you will deliver real quality for people and reduce delivery costs massively. Anything else is a leap of faith that will deliver waste and poor service."

We need government departments like DWP to understand this. We need them to understand that their failures get picked up by advice services. We need to understand the need for method ourselves too in the advice sector. If you are interested in trying it, please get in touch.

NfP advice in transition – but what to?

Late last month the Cabinet Office published its report on its review of not-for-profit advice provision in England (PDF) and on the same day released details of the £65mAdvice Services Transition Fund – match-funded and administered by the Big Lottery. The report and fund potentially opens the door to the new thinking about advice we atAdviceUK have long called for, but in the real world things are tough and getting tougher. For many advice providers, the new report and funding offers cold comfort as local funding is cut, civil legal aid is largely wiped out and welfare reforms hit hard.

Read the full guest bog for Legal Voice

National Audit Office and Jobcentre Plus

Does your advice service or organisation work with people who use Jobcentre Plus?  Would you like to give your views about Jobcentre Plus services?  If so, you may be interested in this invitation to complete a survey being carried out by the National Audit Office (we tweeted about this back on 17 September, but deadline has been extended to Monday 8 October):

"The National Audit Office is independent of Government and scrutinises public spending on behalf of Parliament. We have the statutory authority to report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which government departments and associated bodies use their resources to achieve policy objectives.

The number of Jobseekers Allowance claimants increased from 0.9 million in August 2008 to 1.5 million in August 2012. As a consequence of the recession and welfare changes, such as reassessment of incapacity benefit, the workload of jobcentres has increased. 

We are conducting a Value for Money study examining the effectiveness and efficiency of the Department for Work and Pensions in responding to change in jobcentres arising from changing economic conditions and welfare reforms. We are seeking to gather the views of customer representatives on how changing workload in jobcentres impacts on customers. Therefore, we would be grateful for your responses to the questions provided in this survey.

We would also appreciate any additional information or research you might wish to pass on to us."

Further background information can be found here.  Please contact Dal at AdviceUK with any questions. 

Welfare Reform: reducing demand? More reflections on the London Advice Conference

By Carolina Gottardo-Director of the Latin American Women’s Rights Service  (LAWRS) AdviceUK member

I recently attended an interesting conference about the Advice sector in London, which included the participation of a representative from the Cabinet Office.

She presented the idea of a transitional fund that will be introduced for the struggling sector and with a calm voice said that ‘the Government wants to reduce the demand for advice services’. Which is what we all want. Laudable so far, until she said that they want to do this through the introduction of the Universal Credit System. The audience, more than 100 people, mainly from Law Centres, independent advisers, second tier organisations and NGOs working with groups with different protected characteristics such as myself, could not stay still. You could hear murmuring all around.

The Government has to be joking to say this. Do they really believe that the introduction of the Universal Credit will reduce demand? If they genuinely believe this, then, they must be living in a world far away from those that struggle to make ends meet. If they don’t believe it, then it shows that they couldn’t care less. What is worse? I haven’t made up my mind yet.

Let me tell you how reality is for the people that need advice and will suffer from the introduction of the Universal credit and changes in the welfare system and for those who provide advice to them…

We at the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS), struggle to cope with increasing demand for our advice services, but at the same time, we are struggling to keep our funding and continue providing our services. Many women come to our drop-in very early on every Monday morning in order to queue for language and culturally friendly advice. Most Mondays we are unable to see every one that needs to be seen.  This is despite resourcing an increase in the number of workers through our reserves. Our waiting list for women that seek advice on housing, welfare, money and debt is ever-increasing. Some of the issues have been the changes in housing and tax credits already implemented. Many women are already coming to see us because they are anxious about the introduction of Universal Credit System and wonder if their families will be able to survive. According to recent research commissioned by the TUC, single mums will lose 18.5 per cent of their income through cuts -60% of our users are single mums.

These are women that are already struggling to survive in a world that stigmatises them as “benefit scroungers” In reality,  the employment rate of Latin Americans (85%) is much higher than the average of 61% and only 1 in 5 Latin Americans claims welfare benefits (much lower than the average). Our most vulnerable women, who often have high levels of education, struggle to make ends meet and work in low paid, low skilled jobs.

The truth is that women, ethnic minorities, disabled people, younger people, older people and other discriminated people are the ones bearing the brunt of the government’s welfare reforms.  This will only continue increasing demand for advice services and will put enormous pressure on voluntary organisations such as the Latin American Women’s Rights Services and many others.

The true measure of a Government is the way it treats women and its minorities. How are we treating ours? 

Disclaimer: Blogs do not necessarily reflect the views of AdviceUK

Personal Independence Payments

The Personal Independence Payment (PIP) will be replacing Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for people of working age, and is due to be introduced for new claimants from April 2013. For people who currently get DLA, it's important to note that there is no automatic transfer to PIP, so between October 2013 and March 2016 the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will be writing to people, inviting them to make a claim for PIP. Each person's entitlement will be assessed against the new criteria. If you haven't already done so, do have a look at our website page on changes to the welfare system - there are some great resources available to help untangle the acronyms and complex transition arrangements. We receive regular updates about PIP through DWP stakeholder meetings.

We share the concerns of organisations like Scope (expressed for example in their paper entitled The Future of PIP: a social model-based approach) and Mind (focusing on the impact on people with mental health problems) about the way in which PIP is being brought in and the impact of the expected 20% reduction in spend compared to DLA. As we have said earlier, we think that there is a better way: people getting a service that meets their needs, and taxpayers getting a service that is able to learn where it is failing and how to change.

Rising to the Challenges Facing Advice Services

Reflections on the London Advice Conference


Chief Legal Ombudsman Adam Sampson was right to challenge the advice sector at the London Advice Conference (3/7/12). The former Shelter CEO urged delegates to consider efficiency, investment in technology and new funding models as they grapple with grim times of funding cuts, welfare reform and increased demand.


Re-modelling advice services in the wake of legal aid and local funding cuts will be painful, but as Sampson says, the focus must be not on maintaining old structures but on clients. Former Justice Secretary Willy Bach called for unity - "it's all about survival now". We may do well to remember it's really about the people who need and use advice services now and so should it always be. Technology and funding models may help but they are not the starting point. We need a method to become efficient, client-focused and sustainable. 


The posts on this blog site have focused exclusively on how we can transform advice using 'outside-in', client-focused methodology. It struck me while listening to the lively closing debate at the conference that the systems thinking approach to advice that AdviceUK has pioneered and promoted for several years now offers a methodology that should equip us to rise the challenges of our times. It offers the chance to really understand and act on what matters to clients, rethink purpose, understand demand, how work flows through advice systems and what conditions affect our behaviour. As my colleague Simon Johnson suggested in his workshop ('Commissioning for Value'), to improve and thrive advice services must unlearn old rules, think again and make services people shaped. We could do better things if we stop trying to do things better (in other words, do the wrong thing righter).


We know that large amounts of demand result from preventable failure. DWP were mentioned many times during the conference as prime culprits. LAG's Steve Hynes called on them to pay for the pollution they cause. That may be right. A financial penalty for failure would focus the mind. But as Willy Bach said, a polluter pays principle is unlikely to get far - it amounts to Government departments compensating each other for their failures. As I have argued previously on this matter, it would be better to build a constructive relationship with the likes of DWP so that advice services have real opportunities to tackle the preventable failures, waste and cost in their systems rather than simply mopping up the effects. And that includes new Universal Credit systems, which will not be free of failure, whatever the Government claims.


That's easier said than done, I know. The point made by several delegates about the danger of making a big assumption that those in political power give a damn about improving welfare and tackling poverty is true. But we must try, in the interests of clients.


The Government has an opportunity that we must urge them to take. As Hilary Norman told us, they Cabinet Office is concluding a review of advice and about to set up a new £16.8M fund in England. While we certainly don't need another transition fund, equally we need the new funding to encourage client centred, preventative frontline services that tackle systemic failure not just services with a new list of output targets to meet. We also need the Government to get the polluters round the table to work with us.


See more comments on the conference via Twitter #inspire12


For more information about AdviceUK's systems thinking work, contact me.


Phil Jew, Head of Policy, AdviceUK

Get a good deal for your citizens and for your local authority

In many localities, independent advice services, helping people with debt, money, welfare benefits, housing, consumer and employment problems are feeling the pinch. Demand for advice has risen to record levels since the start of the economic crisis in 2008. But as benefit and welfare systems are radically reformed and people’s lives and problems increase in complexity, the services that help them are being cut back. Legal aid cuts will wipe over £50 million a year off independent advice service budgets – only partially off-set by £20m pa for two years (2013/14 and 2014/15) for advice announced in the March budget. Some local authority funding – by far the biggest source of finance for local advice service – has also reduced.

Many local authorities have also switched from grant aid to procured service contracts. And that’s where problems can really start for advice services. Too often we have seen output heavy, detailed service specifications, aimed at increasing productivity but which in fact create waste and obviate preventative work. Far from achieving better value for money, the approach actually ends up with poorer services that fail to save the money they could.

A couple of us from AdviceUK attended an ‘Outcome Based Commissioning’ workshop put on by CIPFA recently. It was attended mainly by local authority commissioning and procurement officers. Towards the end of the very informative, positive day came the salutary reminder of the thought uppermost in the minds of most local authority staff responsible for funding or purchasing services. It came in the form of a question: ‘This is all very well, but how will it save money - and now?’

Now we’re all for a focus on outcomes from commissioners and funders. As Mark Davison from Centre for Public Innovation argued, performance targets should be about customer achievement, not provider activity. They should link to desired outcomes and be in the domain of the provider in agreement with the commissioner. An outcome based approach should build in verification and learning, rapid course correction and collaboration. Above all it should enable a customer/people focus, rather than a service focus.

But we think there is something more local authorities can do to achieve better value for money from advice services and start to save money.

We have worked with Portsmouth City Council and local advice services on a very different approach to advice service commissioning and design that is already showing signs of paying off. This work built on an initiative we started five years ago and has seen us work with advice agencies and authorities in Powys, Oxford and Nottingham. Other local authorities are also interested in the work.

It starts with commissioners and advice services working together to understand demand that hits advice services, the problems people present and how the advice services respond. It recognises that advice services sit within a wider system of welfare, housing, debt and justice administration, and requires new thinking about the advice service design, purpose and measurement of success. Above all, the approach centres on the person who uses local advice services and what they need and should expect from the service in terms of positive change for them.

What we learned in Portsmouth was that 42 per cent of demand for advice was the result of the failure of public services such as Job Centre Plus, Pensions Service and HM Revenue and Customs. This is consistent with findings in other localities. For advice services, sorting out these failures can be a lengthy process. Resolving matters for someone who sought advice about a large benefit overpayment (which turned out to be the result of an administrative error) took 16 calls and 3 letters with the benefits service over 51 days. That’s a waste of adviser time and  the benefits service time, it’s a poor service for the person concerned, does not achieve better outcomes and costs money. It takes much needed resources away from dealing with people who get positive outcomes from advice.  But it is failure and waste that often goes unnoticed. The way public service efficiency is measured and advice services are funded treats all work the same – whether it is avoidable or not – and so fails to identify the true costs in the system.

What we have also observed is that people lead complex lives and when faced with problems, such as redundancy or illness, many struggle to navigate the array of services, leading to an escalation of their problems and more intense and costly support in the long-term. Organisations tend to design services and expect the people who use them to become “service-shaped”, instead of designing against the true demand and making services ‘people-shaped’. So we design in silos around funding streams and people slip through the net. Advice and other interventions are less likely to succeed if the wider problems impacting on people’s lives are not resolved. But advice services are in a unique position to understand where things go wrong, as they are often where people turn when they can’t get what they need from the system.

So funding advice services in a way that encourages and requires them to understand demand, respond flexibly, work in active collaboration with other services and adopt a preventative and early intervention approach is essential. A service that is focused on the whole person, not on problems or output targets will achieve better outcomes.

Portsmouth City Council realised this. They were actively engaged in a collaborative effort to understand local advice services and demand. Commissioners recognised that to harness this learning, they needed a completely different approach. They moved from an output-heavy Community Legal Advice Service jointly procured with the Legal Services Commission to commissioning a service with the over-riding principle of customer focus and continual improvement. The service must respond to what customers want and understand the levels and causes of failure in the wider system of which advice is a part. It must be responsive, enabling of clients, high quality, professional and flexible to meet different levels of need. It must be collaborative; working with other services to share learning, coordinate services for people and tackle the causes of demand.

The new service will be measured against successful access, end to end problem resolution times, the number of and reasons for repeat visits, the levels of failure dealt with and customer satisfaction. But what is important is that measures are used dynamically by service managers and commissioners to learn what is happening, to understand the causes and to continually improve. Contract management becomes a partnership approach to solve problems, with a view to tackling the causes of demand of advice – with cost benefits across a range of public services.

Having won the contract, Advice Portsmouth is now working to this specification and putting redesigned services into practice. Early signs are good. The first problem the new service thought it was going to have to fix was how to cope with demand. But early signs are that by working in different, more client-focused ways, waiting times have reduced, though levels of demand haven’t fallen. The next step is to support advisers and managers to learn about what works to help people truly solve their problems, and move away from delivering individual transactions towards engaging clients in achieving a long-term fix.

When preventable failure is identified, the service will act to tackle it at source, in collaboration. Such an approach was taken in Nottingham last year: local independent advice services and council officers cut benefit processing times from 100 to just 5 days by designing services together around the needs of customers.

The result: savings for the public purse, better value for money, better services and better outcomes for people.

To find out how you could follow this example, contact AdviceUK.