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Low Commission’s Manifesto for Advice in Wales aims to expand on its previous Welsh success
Just ahead of the Welsh Assembly elections, the Low Commission is launching a Manifesto for Advice in Wales. The commission hopes to build on the progress made in Wales in establishing the National Advice Network, an initiative we strongly lobbied for in our first report.1Tackling the advice deficit: a strategy for access to advice and legal support on social welfare law in England and Wales, LAG, January 2014. The concept of a national network is at the heart of the Low Commission’s strategy for how advice services should be managed, co-ordinated and organised to maximise capacity in an era of reduced public funding. In establishing the network, the Welsh government has proven that our approach works.
The function of the network is to provide overall strategic leadership and co-ordination for the advice sector in Wales, to get a better picture of need and gaps in provision, to spread good practice, learning and quality standards, and to embed partnership working. In many respects, it is similar to the visions that underpinned both community legal advice partnerships and advice services transition partnerships, based on evidence that more can be achieved where there’s a framework for different agencies to work together and share services and solutions. Above all, it enables services to be planned in a co-ordinated way.
More can be achieved where there’s a framework for different agencies to work together.
Our manifesto takes our ideas to the next stage in looking at how the National Advice Network can work with the next Welsh government and Assembly to achieve strategic objectives. The manifesto ranges over:
•the anti-poverty and communities first agenda;
•refreshing the Welsh government’s financial inclusion strategy;
•responding to welfare reform and housing issues in Wales;
•integrated health, well-being and equalities policies; and
•the policy context implications of further devolution.
We are launching the manifesto at the Assembly/Senedd building (Tŷ Hywel) on 16 March with Lesley Griffiths AM, minister for communities and tackling poverty, and other party spokespersons who are all supportive of the community advice sector. Bob Chapman, chair of the National Advice Network, said: ‘This manifesto will help to put advice at the heart of the next Welsh government’s agenda.’ ■