Following on from this fred:
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=112&topic_id=641&mesg_id=641&listing_type=search I wonder whether anyone can offer any practical advice or better, an example of policy and protocol, for the following situation:

Our small team currently provides WR advice for Community (=Social) Services, and is part of said directorate. Following a succesful bid for county council and its borough and district councils to attain unitary status, from next April we will be part of the HB team, thus providing an ideal opportunity to lose the trust of our client groups. I think I can come up with some demarcation of roles (and therefore reduced flexibility and increased costs), but would welcome thoughts on and or solutions to:
* handling conflict of interest
* maintaining confidentiality
* balancing current LA 'policing' role with Social Services caring role
* Squaring Circles

I am a debt adviser working as part of a rents team. (firstly within LA and now as a newly formed RSL).. There are conflicts, but my client base doesnt really aknowledge these, as I work on the same principles as a CAB..

However, I am unable to represent at County Court, should a tenant face court action for rent arrears.. I can though, refer tenants on to other organisations in these circumstances - Shelter, Other advice agencies, or I can give the details to the tenant on how to get the warrent suspended..

In some ways, working within the rents teams can be an added bonus.. The team is more likely to listen to my proposals, and will stop action if the tenant works with us.

I imagine your conflicts will include advising on complaints to the Ombudsman / tribunals. How will this advice stand with your Managers..?

From the clients point of view, they probably wont recognise the conflict unless it is pointed out to them.. Many of my clients actually phone me rather than the rents team, as they see me as the friendly face... So it can work in your interests, you just need to work out what your conflicts will be and how you are to deal with them when they arise..

If you need to discuss further, please email me..

We are part of a unitary authority & used to be in the same directorate as the Council's HB service, although we were never part of the same service area/team (as you describe). I know there are different opinions on this, but we take the view that we are not able to assist with HB/CTB disputes because of conflict issues - it would be like the "Council fighting the Council". This is partly also because 1 of our funders (the Legal Services Commission) has taken the same view.

We do assist with claim & backdating issues, e.g. DHPs, backdating requests, & advice on entitlement.

We don't assist with appeals or revisions etc. These are passed instead to our local CAB.

3 years ago (when our service was established), I expected this to be more of an issue. However, the volumes of HB appeals are quite low and most clients seem to access CAB directly anyway.

I appreciate that the situation you describe is more difficult than ours but I hope this helpful. Good luck!

Matthew

Tue 10-Jun-08 02:30 PM by shawn

(Edited to shorten link)

If you are going to be part of the HB section, and it appears that you are, I would suggest that to minimise any potential for conflict, no one in your service is managed by a HB manager with HB/CTB decision making authority.

This will ensure a degree of impartiality in conflict resolution. This might mean that your service is line managed by a more senior manager than might otherwise be the case, but it will ensure that a greater degree of impartiality when reaching decisions that are or have the potential to be controversial.

In social care, (ie both in children’s and adult services, so four examples in total, two in each camp), there are two precedents:

1. Complaints
2. Arrangements for Looked after children

1. Complaints managers in social care are appointed by statute. The complaints manager is responsible for investigating complaints made by service users/children (or their advocates), and will therefore be scrutinising not just the individual treatment of a particular issue, but the local authority’s policies and procedures. There is massive scope for conflict (I have worked in such a post, and it is a very difficult line in promoting the rights of a client (who by the very nature of the work of social care, is always going to be very vulnerable), and the needs of managers to set goals and ensure that money is only spent where absolutely necessary.

2. Social workers and their managers make decisions about children in the public care. However, to ensure that the decisions made are in the child’s interests, the government require that those decisions are reviewed by a third party. These people are known mainly by the title “Independent Reviewing Officers” (IRO’s) and are employed by the same local authority. Again, tensions exist between what the social worker and manager might decide and what an independent person reviewing the decision made might consider is in the best interests of the child.

Consequently, for both services and because of the inherent potential for tensions arising, neither should be managed by front line managers with decision making powers for those services. It is not uncommon for both services to be managed by a manager (in Children’s) by a manager in the Safeguarding Board (this is a statutory board, and exists in all children’s authorities), and in adults by perhaps for instance, a service manager responsible for vulnerable adults.

I have posted a link to the statutory guidance that exists for both services and both sets of guidance deal with conflict resolution/prevention within their respective service areas.

Hope this helps…

Complaints (Children)

IRO guidance

http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/search/IG00007/

I`m not sure in practical terms what the problem is - is it a perceived or actual conflict of interest? At the end of the day the people we advise - want advice. have previously worked in LA's where we was allowed to rep against our own local authority HB section and with hindsight I`m not sure if it was such a good idea and should have referred these cases to other advice agencies.

Not such a good idea – because it can jeopardise ‘one to one’ working relationships with services you actually work alongside- managers. I also found in practical terms you could achieve a lot more for people by working with rather than against local HB section. Yes there is a role for ‘independent advice’ but I`m not sure if it makes sense or is desirable to have one service/employee of an LA representing against another.

Thank you all so far for your thoughts. Yes GJ, I'm with you on working together with HB & Revenues to help both the client/service user/claimant and the LA: what's the point of someone issuing court procedings for non payment of CT when 3 desks down someone is processing a backdated claim for HB/CTB & the client's mental health problems are being exacerbated. Notwithstanding better results for all concerned, its also about the practical issue of not jeopardising our CLS QM, which is another issue again around maintaining a separate identity.

...and HBspecialist, yes, it would come down to having a clear, separated chain of command that keeps HB & WR from being directly managed by one person....

..and Matthew, your decription of what your team does re advice and entitlement, but referring appeals elsewhere, seems to be the way ahead for us, it's just having a policy & procedure that is clearly understood by all parties. Similarly with Dianne, being able to refer cases on to the right kind of organisation because you know what you can and cannot do. You've given me the ideas, I've just got to put then into a cohesive set of docs that fit the council's visions and aims now.
Thanks again y'all.

I didn't the CLS QM was still going, we haven't been audited for 5 years. Anyway you can still reatin CLS Qualitymark and rep in HB decisions providing you have safeguards in place.