Just a phone call away: Is telephone advice enough?

Legal Services Research Centre has produced a new report that examines the similarities and differences between telephone and face-to-face services for legal advice. Noting that over the last two decades the public sector has embraced new modes of service delivery, with a shift away from traditional face-to-face provision towards Internet and telephone based advice and information, the reseacrhers say there has been limited empirical research which compares telephone to face-to-face services.

Thus, they used Legal Services Commission administrative data on housing problems to examine the client groups and matter types which tend toward particular channels of advice, the relationship between mode of advice and the outcome of cases for clients and the relationship between mode of advice and advice time.

They find that find that there are significant differences in mode of advice among clients with particular demographic characteristics, with clients under the age of 18 and clients living with an illness or disability more likely to use face-to-face services. Their findings also suggest differences among the types of problems being addressed by telephone based services, with “pronounced differences” in outcomes achieved when data is examined more closely.

Of particular importance to current proposals to move to a primarily telephone-based system of legal aid, they find that telephone advice takes on average 14 minutes longer than face-to-face advice. In the context of these proposed legal aid reforms, they say it is especially important to note the differences in advice time between those cases which will remain in scope of the legal aid scheme (homelessness) and those which will not (housing benefit) with the former generally longer than the latter.

A switch to telephone provision could actually lead to a rise in average advice time of cases, when compared to existing services. Whether the economies offered by lower overhead costs of telephone provision will be sufficient to offset the costs generated by higher advice times is open to debate. The clear differences in the types of people, problems, outcomes and advice times for cases in receipt of telephone advice imply that the existing CLA telephone service is an unreliable proxy for an expanded service. Their findings suggest that there are substantial risks inherent in a channel shift for legal advice.

In terms of policy moving forward, they highlight that where current behaviour is driven by lack of awareness of the availability of telephone services, any advertising campaign will require careful management. Given the relative ease of telephone access, there is a risk of such services being overwhelmed by callers who do not prove to have eligible problems or do not meet the criteria for otherwise targeted services.

They warn that there is insufficient evidence from the current CLA telephone service to show that telephone advice can deliver the range of tangible benefits available from face-to-face services. This uncertainty is reinforced by the findings that the overwhelming majority of telephone cases do not progress beyond the stage of a first meeting.

Thanks to the Money Advice Trust Information Hub for highlighting this important research.

Just a Phone Call Away: Is Telephone Advice Enough?

Well, this is a curiosity. The report noted above was produced by the Legal Services Research Centre, who used to have their own dedicated website www. lsrc.org.uk (I’ve broken the link because it doesn’t work anymore), which has now been absorbed into part of the Ministry of Justice website instead (presumably on the basis that the Legal Services Commission body will be similarly absorbed soon).

Click through to the LSRC report and analysis section of the MoJ website and the question that springs to mind is, “where is the report?”

The MAT website loaded this report to their site on Friday 4 November, so I’m sure that it’s just a delay at the MoJ end of things and nothing more sinister…....

Are you talking to yourself now Paul? Have things really got that bad!

Heh! Sometimes its the only way I get any sense…..who said that?!

But seriously, I have had a clarification about this paper, it was available on ilegal website as of the start of October (thanks Patrick) and one of the academics involved has been in touch and, pending his go ahead, I will be able to explain more thoroughly the origins of this paper.

Here’s the explanaton from Dr Nigel Balmer of University College London about this piece of research, thanks to Nigel for taking the time to get in touch to clarify:

The question of ‘where is the report?’ has a simple answer. The paper was initially presented at an ESRC seminar by myself and Marisol Smith. A review of what we said can be found here http://www.essex.ac.uk/atj/seminar2.aspx

Balmer, N.J., Smith, M., Denvir, C., and Patel, A. (In press) Just a phone call away. Is telephone advice enough? Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 33(4)

Paul Treloar1 - 09 November 2011 01:31 PM

Heh! Sometimes its the only way I get any sense…..who said that?!

I am glad you got some sense from someone other than yourself on this occasion :-)

Here’s a new blog post from Lasa CEO Terry Hanging on the telephone