Charging for quality

There has been a spate of proposals in recent months to introduce charging for quality and regulatory audit regimes that until now have been paid for by government.
 

• The Legal Services Commission (LSC) is proposing to introduce charging for the audit of the Specialist Quality Mark
• It also proposes phasing out the reimbursement to providers of the cost of accreditation that they have to get in order to meet contract requirements
• The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner has proposed that it will pass the costs of its regulatory regime on to those it regulates

This move to charging advice providers for measures to assure quality began last year when the LSC contracted out the auditing of the General Help Quality Mark to a commercial auditing organisation. An audit now costs between £750 and £1500 for an audit, depending on the size of the organisation.
 
How much?
 
The LSC say that an SQM audit will cost between £900 and £1800 every three years. The immigration accreditation scheme costs around £750 per adviser and the OISC estimate that there will be an annual cost to organisations of over £2000.
 
Impact
 
In the NfP sector the newly proposed charges will hit immigration providers hardest. For example, an NfP organisation that employs solicitors and non-solicitors may in future have to pay for an SQM audit, OISC regulation and the immigration and asylum accreditation scheme. This is on top of having to meet the costs of Law Society practising certificates for its solicitors.
 
ASA is deeply concerned about the impact of the charges on providers and clients. We fear that if they are all introduced they will leave many providers of immigration advice with no option but to close thereby denying potential clients access to the advice they need.
 
The fact that the proposals have been consulted on at the same time in documents that contain no reference to each other indicates a complete lack of joined-up thinking on the part of government.
 
Furthermore, we regard the growing tendency of removing funding for compulsory quality and auditing regimes a few years after they have been imposed on the NfP sector as invidious and contrary to the interests of clients.
 
You can read our response to the LSC consultation here:
Quality in Legal Aid: SQM Outsourcing
 
You can read our response to the OISC consultation here:
Oversight of the Immigration Advice Sector