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Charging clients for advice provision
I must admit (even though I’m with John on the substantive issue) that there are a small number of people I’d gladly put on a premium rate number and watch the dials whirl round with a deeply satisfying feeling!
Phil Jew of Advice UK and Action for Advocacy has written an interesting blog post on charging clients for advice provision.
The idea of asking service users to pay for services provokes strong and sometimes extreme reactions from those in the VCS. There are those who would quit today if their organisation levied a charge. Others see an opportunity to make their services sustainable.
Of course, the post second world war settlement of free universal access to key services is long dead. There is a means test now for most public services and there has been for many years. Indeed, in the advice world, eligibility for Legal Aid has been based on means since the establishment of the scheme in 1949. Eligibility has been successively reduced and the current Government is proposing further cuts (see Justice for All’s commentary). Contributions to costs are also collected by the Legal Services Commission. So some not for profit advice services, although late-comers to the delivery of legal aid services, are no strangers to means testing and fees (albeit not collected directly by them).
The world of personal budgets has been inhabited by advocacy services and advice services for several years now. The prospect of funding for advocacy and advice coming from personal budgets for health, social care and other needs rather than paid in advance contracts or grants is a real one. Then we could all be collecting fees, from richer and poorer clients
I think they already know they’ve been rumbled… The header now reads:
For more info on Jobseekers Allowance:
Telephone : 0844 496 8000
Calls will be connected to the Job Centre Plus Office
Which is open Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm
Calls cost 5p per minute from a BT landline*
This service is not affiliated with the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP)
[
I think you’ve missed point the Lorraine… The 0844, at 5ppm, number points to a government freephone. It is active. How can it be right or ethical to hijack a freefone number and charge for calls directed to the freephone number?
Fair enough. Seems like it’s been around a long time, it’s being given out by some quite reputable services as a JSA Info line number - Staffs Business Innovation Centre, Heart of England NHS Trust, etc, as being owned by DWP. They’ve got themselves a lot of exposure.
No worries Tony. I googled the number itself, that’s where I picked up those giving it out. Whoever owns the website/number is pretty good at promoting themselves on Yahoo Questions & the like, it’s across all of those, I suspect they probably posted the questions as well to be honest.
It’s pretty sickening that someone’s taking advantage of people like this, I thought my old friends at Brighthouse were bad enough…
I’ve just spoken to Ofcom to (try and) register a complaint. They weren’t completely clear as to whether this is an area where they can intervene, and have asked me to follow this up with DWP, who they think should be the ones making any complaint. So I will try to pursue with DWP.
Puzzingly, the lady that I spoke to also claimed that the person offering the 0844 number wouldn’t be making any revenue from using such a number, which I find very difficult to believe is the case and she agreed seemed strange.
They also suggested an approach to the Advertising Standards Authority, if there is a belief that the Google advert itself is misleading - I think this is a moot point, given that it’s more the omission of fact that there is a free 0800 number available alternatively.
Tony
I quite agree with your reponse to this scam, but I’m wondering where you get your Consumer Direct phone cost from. Their number is 0845 & the Ofcom site gives this:
0845
How much do calls cost? Calls are typically charged at between 1p and 11.5p per minute depending on the time of day for landline customers . Calls from mobile phones generally cost between 20p and 41p per minute.
I contacted our Trading Standards and their view was the company does offer a full refund for those who are not satisfied with the service and they aren’t committing an offence even though the same service is free by contacting DWP directly. They said they wouldn’t be passing my information on to other area’s Trading Standards.
For what it’s worth there is a useful OFCOM guide to prefix codes here: http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/files/2010/01/numbering.pdf and a list of direct dial (Directgov site) numbers for consumer direct here:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Directories/UsefulContactsByCategory/Governmentcitizensandrightscontacts/DG_196191
Isnt competition and the “market” a wonderful thing. You cant beat good old “choice”
Surely if a client “chooses” to call a premium rate number then that is nobody elses business?
A Disgraceful state of affairs and one wonders how these shysters sleep at night.
...and here’s another premium rate line: http://www.phonenumber.co.uk/INCOME-SUPPORT-customer-service-phone-number/
And relatedly, I spoke to a client yesterday who was trying to chase up a missing JSa payment. She went into the local Jobcentre, who said they couldn’t help her, she needed to phone from a BT landline (Yes, that exact quote) and gave her 0845 6043719 to call, rather than the 0800. I gave her the freephone number, and she’s all sorted, but even JC+ would rather people paid to speak to them. Grrr.
I’ve received a response from DWP, which states the following:
“This issue has been raised with DWP who have sought legal advice. The Department cannot take legal action in what is a private matter, ie, the loss of money charged by the website to individual customers. Their advice is that anyone affected should take the matter up with the Trading Standards Department at their local authority.”
So we’ve gone around full circle by the looks of it.
Jon Robins, editor of the Justice Gap website, wrote an interesting piece for the Guardian, on law centres moving to a fee-charging model to try and ensure sustainability of service provision yesterday. He looks at the experience and plans of Rochdale, Islington and Hackney Law Centres in particular.
Both Rochdale and Islington are moving into private fee-paying work. For a movement built on the not-for-profit ethos, it isn’t an easy move. “We don’t want law centres to charge because we don’t want to confuse the issue with clients,” comments Gillian Quine, senior solicitor at Rochdale. “However we do think that perhaps we might be able to set up some kind of sister company or charging arm for certain types of work and where people evidently could afford to pay a certain amount.”
The idea is to hive off the fee-paying business into a community interest company (or CIC), a relatively new corporate structure designed for social enterprises that want to use profits for the public good.
Down the road, Hackney Community Law Centre is looking hard at ways to survive the cuts but is uneasy at charging clients. “This new climate is creating great upheaval and uncertainty for clients. They’re frightened that they will soon have no access to justice,” chair Ian Rathbone tells me. “Many centres are seriously considering whether they will need to expand into areas where clients can pay - even at much reduced rates - in order to stand any chance of continuing to provide services. It is distressing we’re having to make such choices.”
Definitely worth reading, if this is an avenue that your agency is considering in the future.
Law centres have always struggled to survive - now they must adapt or die
the morality of charging people on benefits for advice is extremely dubious. .... will we be turning away the poorest?
What about the morality of queue jumping when others pay? Many agencies have deals with e.g. housing associations where their tenants get a better service because the HA has paid out. If others get no service at all, because this uses up adviser resources, what then?