HCLC News

HCLC is encouraging everyone who cares about the future of advice in the UK to take part in The Big Advice Survey, which launched in December last year.

 

The Big Advice Survey is a national survey conducted at a local level. It looks at how we deal with problems in our daily lives and where advice fits in. It also explores the potential for alternative ways of delivering advice services as well as a range of other areas eg the relationship between advice and health and wellbeing.

 

The Big Advice Survey is collaborative, created and promoted by individual Citizens Advice Bureaux and Law Centres and an incredibly diverse range of other organisations including solicitor firms, community groups, local businesses, foodbanks, housing associations, colleges and educational institutions. The Big Advice Survey went live on Monday 1st December 2014 and will run until the end of March 2015. It is the largest UK-wide front-line service collaboration for many years.

 

What is the big advice survey looking at?

You can take the survey from the home page of http://bigadvicesurvey.org.uk/ to see the questions being asked. Broadly, the survey designers are interested in what types of problems members of the public experience, what they do about them and where advice fits in. They are looking at the potential for developing new services, especially digital, and the validity of doing so. They are also interested in consequential costs to the state, local government and other bodies when people do not get timely advice. They are building on existing work around the links between advice and improving health, wellbeing and community cohesion.

 

What is the catchment area of the survey?

The survey is UK wide. You can find out more about geographical catchment here: http://bigadvicesurvey.org.uk/partners/.However, the survey will also be capturing data from areas where there is not, for example, a resident Advice Services Transition Fund project or, any resident project is not itself participating.

 

What are the benefits of participating?

Organisations will be able to use the survey data for their own purposes. This might be in developing local advice and legal support plans with local authorities, as evidence in funding bids, within the business planning process or in campaign work, amongst others. You will also be taking part in the largest front-line collaboration of advice providers and other organisations interested in the future of advice services in the UK.

 

*We would be very grateful if you could please take a few minutes to complete the survey and also share it with clients, advice sector colleagues, community groups, local councillors and anyone else interested in the future of advice in the UK*.