Advocacy must be better value than advice

Here's a thought that could put a bit of wind behind the sails of both advocacy and advice projects... [N.B. It is a rough and ready formulation, in keeping with this blog's character - it can be developed into a more polished argument if there is a demand.]

There was much said about the 'huge' cost of putting advocates in every local area: £7.5 million just for one each was mentioned, a cost almost equivalent to the entire IMCA budget; and if this was to be extended to a whole advocacy scheme the costs would rocket.

I can't help thinking about the costs of some of my local and not so local advice services though. The CAB is of course a fantastic organisation, and has many great advisors. It is also old, and established to the point where every town and city seems to feel the need to have sometimes several large buildings stuffed with advisors, administrators and managers. They also have outreach workers in many other local centres. I have no idea what the national total of all the CAB projects is alone, but I bet it costs at least a quarter of a million pounds per year to run the average district branch - and then there are all the other independent and Council run advice centres as well.

This is of course to be expected - the concept of going and getting advice from a qualified advice worker has been around for 60 years, and it was given a good boost in the post war growth of the 1950s and 60s. And we do all benefit from these services, not least because we send people there (or take them) as part of our work as (non-advice giving) advocates.

The question now has to be asked though, is all this expenditure really worth it, and should the advocacy sector be asking for a slice of the money? I have to say that although I refer people to the CAB and other local advice centres, I also constantly have discussions with other people about the lack of anywhere reliable to get advice - the queues are too long, the length of time spent per person is too short, and the basic mistakes made with people's DLA forms seem to be too frequent. We send people to advice centres because that is what is done - advocates cannot give advice, Council and NHS staff can't give advice, and we all make the only referral that is open to us in the circumstances.

I should note again, before I get flamed, that this is just a broad picture of advice and not what always happens. On the other hand though, in my 10 years of community work experience in West Yorkshire I've witnessed various feuds and battles going on within and between advice services, neighbouring branches of the CAB who wouldn't talk to each other, a chairman who verbally abused members at an AGM, and numerous threats to cut funding followed by desperate appeals and last minute reprieves as commissioners decide there is no alternative.

There are more important and relevant issues though. Firstly, noticing various scandals and disasters that have occurred over these 60 years of advice services, the legislators have created systems designed to ensure that certain quality standards are met. So now it takes an army of managers and administrators to ensure everything is done properly, it takes months to train people to use the knowledge systems and follow the right procedures, and it takes a long time to see each client, while the rest of the queue is left waiting.

The other thing, connected to all this legislation, and linked to developments in other fields along the lines of providing properly scientific and regulated services, is that advice has to be objective and correct. This is one of the reasons it takes so long to train people to deliver it, but also one of the main reasons that it fails to meet the needs of many of the most vulnerable people who need it.

I think advocates could make a good case for providing an equally essential service, in many ways better than the services I've been describing.

For a start, we have a much better chance of helping people to solve their problems because we place ourselves closer to the people and their problems. We still maintain boundaries, but the boundaries are different: we work with people's own wishes, needs and understandings; we don't try to impose 'best' or 'correct' approaches to solving problems; we go with people to meetings, and follow issues through with them to the end, we meet them in a variety of places but there's rarely a desk or a computer between us. There are many other points - these are the unique advantages of advocacy.

Secondly, we are much easier to train. There are still training issues of course, but we don't have to use complicated computer systems, we don't have to follow rigid procedures, and we don't have to develop a huge expert knowledge and be able to provide the 'right answers'. We do need to be able to communicate (very) effectively with people, and we need to understand that we are helping them to develop and follow their own agenda, without imposing our (or our culture's) idea of best interest or propriety.

All these factors of course mean massive savings: less training, smaller offices, less IT infrastructure, fewer procedures, cheaper insurance because professional indemnity is not such an issue.

There are also other advantages. We can work with many people who are simply not able to understand and follow through with the advice they are given, even if they are able to get to the advice centre. As yet we don't have the squabbling and back-biting of some advice services (also a terrible waste of money). And we are a relatively new phenomena, with proportionately more excitement and enthusiasm amongst our practitioners.

Is there anything I've missed out. I hope you agree that on the face of it advocacy would seem to offer significantly better value than advice. I think there are many more reasons that I haven't covered here, so please let me know your ideas and let's move into those old advice centres...