Advice and Advocacy
A guide to setting up an advice project by Revd Dr Catherine Shelley, St Ed’s, Mottingham
The St Edward’s Advice Project grew out of needs identified through both pastoral work and the opening of a Credit Union Collection Point in February 2018. The pastoral work had identified a range of issues around domestic violence, housing, benefits, food poverty and immigration; the Credit Union collection point flagged up the levels of debt with which people were struggling. So, the project began relatively informally by responding to the need. When we began formalising the project, there were certain steps we needed to take. For more information, see our case study.
Personnel
Identify people with the relevant qualifications to help and advise; we have three members of the church with legal qualifications. All three hold practicing certificates from relevant bodies (Law Society or Bar Council) and ensure that those are kept up to date annually, with the relevant CPD points.
People do not need to have full legal qualifications to advise but they must have relevant training and supervision. The more qualifications, the lower the risk and the more reasonable the insurance costs!
Training is available online from Law Works and Advice UK and it is advisable for all members of the project – including those who are legally qualified – to access this training to ensure that they remain up to date in the relevant areas of practice. Modules are offered in areas like benefits, housing and debt. It is also worth keeping abreast of developments via several online subscription services like Disability Rights UK, the CAB and Shelter as well as government websites like the DWP.
Partnerships and insurance
It is worth belonging to Advice UK, the umbrella body for law centres, and Law Works UK also acts as an umbrella body, particularly with access to training.
Insurance can also be obtained through Advice UK but it is not cheap. Depending on the numbers of professionally qualified lawyers and volunteer advisers, insurance is likely to cost in the region of £2,500.
An alternative way to manage the insurance, if the majority of your advisers are in practice as lawyers, is to see if their firms will cover the project as part of their professional indemnity insurance. This is the route that St Edward’s has taken as we did not have the funds for the Advice Works insurance. However, this limits the insured members of the project to those who hold a current practicing certificate as part of the legal profession. To date the project has remained under the umbrella of the PCC and the legal firms that back it; were we to have adopted a separate constitution and legal identity then separate insurance would have been required. It is an aspiration that the project develops to become independent in due course but that will require more funding than is currently available.
Be prepared to work in partnership with other agencies who can provide services that you cannot; for example, to apply for a Debt Relief Order organisations have to be accredited. Working with the CAB or Christians Against Poverty can provide access to that remedy.
Scope
You need to make careful decisions about the scope of your work. Will you attend court and tribunals with people as a McKenzie friend or limit your work to advice prior to court settings?
Have clear boundaries around times available and capacity and also the limits of your role. Where someone has a case that means they are entitled to legal aid then refer them to local solicitors who will have more time available and need to make their living from the work. Advice projects are to fill in gaps and build trust not to take over the legal profession.
Be careful about your publicity so that you do not raise expectations too high and recognise that many people may need a lot of pastoral support as well as the legal support which takes time.