Housing advice and the growth of digitisation

Shelter has published a new policy briefing that looks at the role of digital channels in the delivery of housing advice. Noting both the government drive to move towards publicly funded services being available whenever and wherever the citizen needs them, and the plans for a mandatory telephone gateway for legal aid advice, the briefing considers the type of housing problems people have and how different delivery channels work for different client groups. Disrepair and eviction are the most common housing problems, with common client characteristics identified as including renting private or social housing, being a single parent, being unemployed, and being young (18-24).

Currently, housing problems are met by a range of providers including private solicitors, Law Centres, CABx and Shelter, mainly through face-to-face, but also via telephone and websites. On the issue of telephone versus face-to-face, the briefing challenges the assertion that the former is necessarily cheaper and quicker than the latter, based on a study using Legal Services Commission data. Also, it notes that clients under 18 and people with an illness or disability, particularly mental ill health, are more likely to use face-to-face services, as well as people facing urgent problems such as homelessness.

Most adults in the UK (83.5%) have used the internet now, with three-quarters of all homes having a broadband connection. 44% of internet users are identified as being ‘next generation’ users, which means they access the internet from multiple devices and locations, including smart phones. Over a quarter of all adults owned a smart phone by 2011, which is predicted to increase significantly again. However, smart phone users are more likely to be male, younger and from ABC1 social groups than regular mobile phone users, and some 8.2 million adults have never used the internet, half of whom are disabled. Studies have identified a correlation between social disadvantage and ability to access and use digital services.

Further, there are 5.7 million households in the UK with no internet connection at all, although other figures related to peoples’ use of the internet showed an increase of 2 million people from 2009 to 2011. In the USA, smartphones appear to be reducing the digital divide, with young adults, minorities, those with no college experience and those with lower household incomes being more likely to say that their phone is their main point of internet access.

The government’s digital by default agenda is covered, particularly around the introduction of the Universal Credit between 2013 and 2017, which will require all applications to be made online. In recognition of the reality of the digital divide, the government has developed a policy of ‘assisted digital’ to run alongside the digital by default agenda. Assisted digital includes:

* provision of digital services interface where non-digital elements are required e.g. ID verification;
* provision of physical access and/or support to use digital channels;
* signposting to internet training e.g. UK Online centres;
* specialist solutions to specific issues e.g. blind, disabled, older people.

Noting the work of Race Online 2012, who are working with 15 leading housing associations to research the social and economic benefits that tenants and landlords stand to realise from the housing sector developing its digital capacity, they go onto to analyse characteristics of housing advice clients, including Shelter’s own web clients. They say their evidence suggests that they may simply be tapping previously unmet need rather than shifting people from one channel to another i.e. creating more demand for advice, not less.

They note that in health and care services, the government anticipates that, while digital technologies offer opportunities to rationalise transactions such as booking appointments, information given through face to face contact with professionals will remain a vital part of care for many people. Shelter believes this also applies to the provision of housing advice. Face to face advice services must continue to be commissioned widely alongside telephone and digital services, in order to ensure that those most likely to have housing problems will be able to access advice when and where they need it.

The government’s commitment to a digital by default strategy must include a commitment to understand the advice seeking behaviour of different client groups, in particular young people where there appears to be a mismatch between high levels of internet access and yet a preference for face to face services. Furthermore, it is essential to understand how different channels impact on outcomes for housing advice clients. In order to help vulnerable people with housing problems use digital services more extensively, the government must invest in:

* a comprehensive plan, developed with the housing advice sector, to digitally enable housing advice clients in a way which is meaningful and can lead to resolution of their problems; and
* capital grants to enable the Not-for-Profit sector to develop appropriate digital services for vulnerable clients.

Edited to remove broken link

Hi Paul, the link seems to be broken and I can’t seem to locate report on the Shelter website- unless I’m just looking in the wrong place…

Thanks, I’ll try and resolve tomorrow.

A link to the Shelter webpage Policy briefings has a link to the report.

And this might be a link to the pdf? Shifting channels: Housing advice and the growth of digitisation

Don’t know what happened there, but hopefully that’s sorted it out now?