Regulation for legal advisers?

...the three largest legal regulators (the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Bar Standards Board and Institute for Legal Executives Professional Standards) are currently undertaking a review of regulatory requirements in relation to the education and training of the legal workforce. One of the issues the review will consider is whether regulatory requirements should be put in place in relation to the training and competence of individuals who are not qualified lawyers but who work in regulated organisations.

This is part of the written response reported in Hansard yesterday replying to a question from Jim Cunningham asking whether there are any “plans to ensure that volunteers and lay advisers who provide legal advice have a minimum qualification level; and if he will make a statement”

Hansard

I think it’s an excellent idea if implemented well. For example money advisers have the IMA and MAT which provide them with membership and certification at different levels (generalist, caseworker and specilist) but there’s nothign in place for benefits advisers/caseworkers/specialists which I think is a great shame.

Having played a leading role in developing the National Competences for advisers in Scotland I have long been in favour of some competency based standards in England and Wales.  Some sort of requirement to undergo x hours a year of training and development could also be a good thing.

However, there is a risk that effective, informal advice bodies could be adversely affected and there are significant hidden costs.  If the likes of the LSC have any influence, the chances are that the standards would be cumbersome, bureaucratic and biased towards their agenda. 

There is also a huge amount of advice and practical help provided by non advisers like housing officers, support workers, social workers etc.  It would be wholly damaging (particularly for people who do not generally access mainstream advice services) if they no longer felt able to advise because they did not have some seal of approval.  The scale of work of such people is too often underestimated.

Finally, it goes without saying that there’s probably more chance of seeing airborne sus domestica than any government money to make this happen.  Even if funding was to be forthcoming, the advice sector would probably be quite annoyed if £x million was set aside for the cost of raising standards while core funding was being cut.

Its something that NAWRA has been talking about over the last few months.

Our Durham meeting had a workshop considering “professionalising” welfare rights work. The results are on the website under the June 2010 meeting.

We’re considering the next steps.

Thanks Phil.

Here’s a link to the NAWRA website. Look in archive for the minutes.