Many advice agencies report that they are overwhelmed by the demand for advice and that this often leads to long waiting times, delays in clients receiving advice and increased pressure on reception and advice staff. Many are also accountable to several different funders and must ensure that clients are directed promptly to the appropriate service. While acknowledging that supply and demand are affected principally by external factors, we know that some advice agencies wished to explore ways of managing demand which would improve access to advice for their clients while helping the advice agency to make the most effective use of its resources.
The “Managing Demand” element of the pilot exercise produced a number of template documents such as flow charts for reception and triage staff which could be adapted by any advice service wishing to review both its access systems and the roles and tasks required to manage demand in a busy advice service. We also produced training materials covering topics such as reception skills, developing a triage service, and assessing eligibility for legal help (public funding), which could be used or adapted by advice agencies. Most of the resources were designed to address problems experienced by larger advice services with LSC and other contracts.
As part of the preliminary assessments for all agencies taking part in the pilot exercises, we asked agencies to describe their “intake” systems – i.e. how clients contacted the service and how queries were initially assessed. Depending on the profile of the agency and its own assessment of what it wanted to achieve, we worked with managers to design access models and to develop training materials which would enable them to implement the changes to their access and allocation systems which they had identified as being necessary.
As part of the preliminary assessments for all agencies taking part in the pilot exercises, we asked agencies to describe their “intake” systems – i.e. how clients contacted the service and how queries were initially assessed. Depending on the profile of the agency and its own assessment of what it wanted to achieve, we worked with managers to design access models and to develop training materials which would enable them to implement the changes to their access and allocation systems which they had identified as being necessary.
