ASA Roundtable 21st October 2020

ASA Roundtable 21st October 2020

The ASA held a virtual Roundtable on the 21st of October to explore and discuss with the advice sector and its supporters our Advising Londoners research and our recent advice sector workforce scoping project, ‘Building the younger generation of advisers’. The event was attended by over 50 professionals from across the advice sector and stakeholder organisations. 

The Roundtable was Chaired by Ruth Hayes, Chair of the ASA Board of Trustees and attendees heard from speakers Lindsey Poole, Director of the ASA and Kani Kundu, Sector Support Executive at the Money and Pensions Service.

Presentations and the discussed reports are available here:

Lindsey Poole, ASA Advising Londoners presentation 

Kani Kundu, MAPS Buildingthenextgen

Advising Londoners report

Building the younger generation of advisers report

The findings and recommendation of the two reports were shared and then attendees were split into breakout groups to discuss the following questions:

1. Do issues raised by these two reports accurately reflect your experiences of the advice sector today? What is similar? What is different?  
2.  What next steps need to be taken to move these issues on? Who needs to do this and who do we need to help?  

On feeding back to the group the following points were discussed:

• How to bring more young people into the advice sector: Whether a national apprenticeship for advice work could be established, the potential of the government KickStart scheme. Looking at student and furlough volunteer platforms for recruitment.
• Training and development of advisers to create a career path: The possibility of a borough/county level advice training programme providing placements across organisations and recruiting from that. Developing partnerships to share best practice on recruitment and training.
• The move to digital advice and how advice organisations could recruit advisers from outside their areas to work remotely.
• The need to gather information and understand initiatives that have already been carried out and how we can create meaningful opportunities to help retain volunteers and advisers.
• Digital exclusion and the changing nature of advice: How this is complex and can include households who have to share one phone or one computer between them. Different ways we can address this.
• Acknowledgement that the sector has always worked within communities and has supported people with lived experience of various issues to become advisers.

The Chair then asked for general contributions and questions from attendees, some of the points discussed were:

• A study into staff retention and recruitment currently taking place at a London based advice organisation.
• The need to balance the mindset of people getting involved in advice work for political, religious, moral reasons and issues around ‘professionalism’ and qualifications.
• How people often get into advice work, from first seeking advice themselves, e.g. as students at Student Unions.
• What is being used to address the advice sector funding gap – (from the Low Commission report 2014).
• The use of social welfare advice in health care settings and different avenues for funding.
• Issues with previous attempts to establish apprenticeships in the legal advice sector with poor take up and a lack of understanding of the nature of the work.
• More research is needed on increasing the diversity of the workforce. The need for an advice sector workforce that better reflects the communities they serve.
• How the need for advice for the recovery from Covid-19 opens up opportunities to engage young people, present opportunities for them and channel their energy.