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The case for advice services grows ever stronger
The Low Commission is making progress on several fronts. We successfully launched a third report at the end of June – this time on the theme of advice and health – and are following this up with a conference at the Department of Health on 14 October. We will also be holding meetings at both Conservative and Labour party conferences in September/October, and have a round of meetings with ministers scheduled in the autumn, when parliament returns from recess.
Clearly, the policy landscape looks very different from two years ago and while the social welfare advice sector continues to show resilience, it needs political support more than ever in order to survive sustainably in the face of year-on-year budget cuts. We have lobbied for the continuation of lottery funding and while it seems the Advice Services Transition Fund will not continue in its current form, other lottery funding streams are putting a premium on advice services as a way to tackle hardship and social crisis. The devolution agenda also has significant implications as to how resources are allocated locally – in a recent lords debate on the Cities and Devolution Bill, Lord Low (pictured) proposed an amendment that newly empowered ‘combined authorities’ should have a local advice plan within the mix of their responsibilities. We are working with some individual local authorities on this, and also with the Welsh government in developing the policies for the Wales National Advice Network.
A great deal is happening at the intersection between local government and the health and care economy, especially as new care models are rolled out, for example via the ‘vanguard’ bids set up by NHS England. Part of our strategy is to demonstrate that advice services have a constructive role to play in the way that local services are configured to address health inequalities; debt, for example, is a key driver of mental ill-health and the health needs of an ageing population point to a bigger role for the advice sector in ensuring that older people can access available support. Housing insecurity also has significant health implications.
Our agenda has always been wider than just problems in the justice system. We are encouraged by the lord chancellor’s frank admission that we now have a ‘two-nation’ justice system, and the welcome change of approach and rhetoric from the previous two years, but we need robust and imaginative policies to address this – both making existing systems more accessible and improving the information and advice that surrounds them. This will only happen if the government joins up more coherently, with the Department for Work and Pensions and others more fully engaged in considering what advice strategies are needed. The conclusion that advice services will be needed more than ever, when the budgetary reforms to tax credits and welfare benefits are implemented, is inescapable.