I've been asked to try and get the views from colleagues working in the Local Authority sector on the Legal Services Commission's decision to start charging for the CLS General Quality Mark.

We have been sent a letter to state for an organisation of our sice it will cost us £1000 every two years to be audited by a company called The Assessment Network Ltd. If we fail to pay we can no longer operate under the Quality Mark.

What are other authorities doing. Are you going to pay up and keep the QM or will you drop it and just operate as a local authority service without it.

Do you have any views on the pro's and con's of keeping or rejecting the QM?

As always, any comments most welcome.

I am a temp working for SDDC, so these are my personal observations. Sorry Pete i've gone off at a tangent.

Having worked in areas with an ecletic mix of different advice agencies, including specialist and generalist, (public sector and not for profit sector), and areas with virtually a CAB monopoly on advice (this is not meant as an implicit criticism of CAB'S or otherwise, i started out as CAB volunteer), i just passionately believe that a healthy advice scene needs a variety of different organisations and advice settings, and will produce better more rounded advisers because of the potential for working for various organisations and in a variety of locations with different client constituencies.

Charging a £1000 for the CLS General Quality Mark every 2 years would effect us at SSDC, because savings would have to be made elsewhere.

But for some of the smaller not for profit organisations in for instance Dorset where i live, e.g. NORDDIS, Disability Wessex, Age Concern Dorchester, Dorset M.E. Society and Hamworthy and Turlin moor Money Advice, i suspect at the very least not all of them could scrape the money together.

Which will contribute to the prevailing trend of advice monocultures and monopolies, paradoxically the very 'one size fits all culture' that our political masters and mistresses cite when they want privatise and assert its about 'choice'.

As for the pro's and con's well sadly the obvious themes that crop up are the 'politics of funding' and its perceived 'kudos' (not withstanding costs), its a prequisite for most funders before they will part with the money. Which makes it necessity for most advice agencies.

Despite it being (in my view) another representation of the tick box culture which has very little substance in terms of being a barometer of good, indifferent, or bad advice agencies. I see it common with the 'target culture' e.g. hospital waiting lists etc etc etc.

I'm part of the NHS and I doubt very much if my employer would care to pay that amount because I would struggle to justify it myself.

Re. Quality Mark, if I surveyed 1000 people coming out of a Jobcentre, I doubt whether a single person would have the faintest idea what I was talking about, let alone care.

In my experience it's the outcomes generated by advice services that count, just like any other business on the high street. People tend to vote with their feet.

The original CLS operating model seemed to be a reasonable step on the way way to raising awareness of bench marked publicly funded advice services, the inference being that without a QM logo, a user was at risk of poor service. However, outside the original pilot areas, awareness of the CLS never appeared to reach critical mass (not enough £££ of course). How could anyone justify spending that amount of money to add a logo to their letterhead that most of its users won't care about, although of course, funders might care but will they stump up the cash?

Well, that's the crux of the issue Steve in my opinion - many funders have taken the QM as a baseline requirement in considering whether to provide funding to organisations, mainly as a result of the previous activities of LSC in promoting it as the benchmark for advice services.

Given the fact that the LSC's operating model for NfP advice agencies, as well as the wider legal advice sector, has made maintaining an SQM contract financially unviable, along with GQM's & audits now coming with a £1000+ price tag, I think this could have a significant negative impact on the future of many independent advice services. If they can't afford the QM, they can't compete for funding and if they can't compete for funding, then they have to close services.

Hell, if some agencies are struggling to find £100 to send their advisors on training courses (which are far more of a practical necessity for day to day advice work), what impact is this development going to have?

Thanks for your replies so far.

I've got to say that I agree with all the comments made so far. I helped the local Alzheimer's branch get the General Help with casework QM a few years ago, the first and only branch to get it as far as I know. No doubt this will now come to an end since the £1000 will be beyond them.

A couple of points that I would like to raise. Our Authority, like many others embraced the QM culture and I have to say it did improve the way in which we work. We also looked for other services that the authority funded to get the QM as a condition of that funding. It seems a little unfair if we, as an authority, drop the QM for in-house advice services but then expect others to achieve it as a condition for continual funding.

Also, if more and more advice agencies drop the QM due to lacks of funds, what position will they be in when and if CLACs/CLANs raise their heads again. Is the Legal Services Commission giving up on the small provider all together?

Again I have to ask the question – Are any other local authority in-house Welfare Rights services going to pay for their audit or are they going to drop it. A quick poll on this message board would help.

Pete we've emailed our Manager on this, when we get a response we'll let you know if SSDC would pay for the audit or drop it (i suspect it wouldn't happen overnight).

I don't know if SSDC when funding outside organisations expect them to have the quality mark, but i think you are right about the fairness aspect.

As for the LSC giving up on small providers? Whether its by design or default, its hard at the moment to be optimistic about small providers futures.

In this LA, WRU and Trading Standards have QM. We are both of immediate view that this sum could be better spent in other ways; providing advice being the main one.
This LA does not insist on Vol Orgs that we fund on having QM. If we did then that would be a good reason for us to pay to be audited - to avoid any cries of "hypocrisy" as mentioned above.
The only other good reason for going down this route that immediately springs to mind is that if advice orgs ( be they LA in-house or other ) were competing for business/clients then the one holding the QM could be seen to be the "better" organistion and this would assist the individual to decide which agency they would prefer to deal with. Again, as above, suspect not that many clients know about LSC QM`s and I`m not aware of any advice orgs actively having to compete against others for business.
I`m not sure that the CLAC/CLAN/CLAP agenda has any current bearing on this QM/audit issue, though it may come to be in the future,
I will pass on LSC letter to senior management and see if they feel this is good use of public funds. Suspect they may come back to me and ask what the LSC is.

Damian Keogh, Wrexham WRU

In reality - Are orgainstions audited when they receive the QM?

In total, our service has been audited three times, (but not for the last 4 years or so). Having the QM has enabled us to have two pots of funding since it was introduced - A grant from the LSC (PIB grant) and currently a grant to provide Macmillan Cancer Support Advisors. For this reason I am keen to keep the QM in case further oportunities arise.

Since posting this message my authority has granted permission (and funds) for the first "new" audit to go ahead which will cover a two year period but we will review it as we go on.

From April, organisations applying for the quality mark will be charged according to the number of employees they have. Fees vary between £1,000 and £1,500.

See Third Sector article

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/883460/Advice-centres-hit-charges/19AF838823E21E8A4ADC49808E8F75FE/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin