Time Well-spent

The Council on Social Action (CoSA) has published a report that examines the importance of the one-to-one relationship between advice workers and their clients.
 
As part of the report, CoSA commissioned its own research on the issue, which asked advice agency clients what they thought were the main characteristics of the ideal advice provider. They then asked the clients to put these characteristics in the order of greatest impact on their ultimate satisfaction. The top four characteristics were:

• Advisers are knowledgeable and appropriately qualified to provide advice to clients
• Advisers provide high quality advice and effective guidance
• Advisers communicate effectively with clients and take care to explain the issues clearly and honestly
• Advisers take time to understand client situations and problems

Unsurprisingly, the top two characteristics relate to adviser knowledge. However, the second two are about how the adviser interacts with the client, in particular, taking time to understand and care to explain. Interestingly, the characteristics relating to the office such as location, opening times, whether it is tidy and comfortable, and resources, whilst raised as important by clients, all come towards the bottom of the list.
 
Why does it matter?
The main conclusion of the report is that, not only do clients value being treated well by their advisers, a strong relationship between adviser and client is "not a luxury. Rather, it is instrumental to achieve a quality outcome and value for money."
 
The report states that "where the relationship is poor, information can be withheld, misunderstood or given incorrectly, all leading either to the wrong advice being given, to the wrong outcome being achieved or to mistakes that have to be rectified later."
 
It goes on to say that the current legal aid system of payment for cases by fixed fees creates "an economic disincentive to take the time to work with the most vulnerable people with the most complex problems."
 
Recommendations
It concludes that there is a mismatch between the view of the government and the view of the advice sector in relation to (i) the purpose of legal aid, (ii) the outcomes legal aid should seek and (iii) the quality of advice provision. It is this mismatch that results in administrative and financial processes led by government that fail to create the best environment for advice to achieve the best outcomes and value for money.
 
The report recommends that the Ministry of Justice and the LSC work with the advice sector to agree shared definitions of these three key factors. It also recommends that further research should be carried out to explore how the relationship between advisers and clients affects outcomes for different types of clients and for different categories of advice. It also calls for further research to be carried out into the savings to the public purse generated by advice work.
 
You can read the report here: Time well-spent