Shared Perspectives on the Outcomes of Advice
Conference SNSIAP Workshop Themes
The following is feedback from the SNSIAP workshop discussions, which highlighted the many
benefits of working to national standards and the enthusiasm from within the advice sector for
applying the SNSIAP to their work.
 What do you think are the benefits of having accredited national standards
for information and advice providers?
For advisers
Job
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satisfaction/recognition
Job satisfaction and recognition of skills and experience.
Providing high standard of advice consistently to all service users
Builds knowledge and confidence and also builds confidence in the service – reassuring/reduces stress
Working to same Standards - provides guidelines to work with and towards, and clear expectation of
skills/knowledge required
Training and development
 Facilitates continuous professional development and improves practice
 Training record/target to work towards/identify training and development gaps
 Ensures all advisers trained to the same level
 Well trained advisers with transferable knowledge and skills
Sharing best practice/skills
 Learn internally from different advisers /peer support
 Peer review (positive to have if you are a sole worker)
 Sharing best practice and customer feedback is motivating and leads to improvements
 Feedback and supervision is an integral part – providing technical support
 Allows any adviser to pick up case
 Constant feedback/ match skills and strength/ know limits/quality information and resources
 Accreditation helps an adviser to know their “studies” are good for clients as well as themselves
 Helps staff to flag up issues with the service, leading to improvements in the organisation
For advice providers
Framework
 Robust process that is assessed and implemented- ensures quality and consistency
 Confidence in staff working to same Standards /consistent practice
 Framework for service to work to – makes it easier when developing policies/processes/procedures
and when recruiting
 Accountability and consistency in advice given
 Creates a level playing field
 Gives cohesion to services – instead of agencies taking different approaches there should be more
consistency once standards in place
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Better level of communication between different services, more to talk about if we are all following
the same practices
Safeguard - know staff are competent
Reputation
 Validation and recognition of the service and clarity regarding remit of service
 Benchmark against peers, competitors. Helps when marketing organisations to raise profile
 Confidence of reputation – helps with partnership work/helps to identify quality partners and promotes
partnership between agencies/public and funder confidence
 More attractive to funders and stakeholders – be seen as robust in quality
 More likely to attract more funding /funders may find accreditation attractive
 Public confidence ensures reputation as trusted source of help, which will be promoted by clients
Staff development
 Identifies staff development needs
 Sharing best practice/increased knowledge
 Informs training and induction plans for staff
 Learning for managers who do not deliver advice – helps them understand
Service development
 Enables service development/becomes good practice
 Working more efficiently/employee engagement/achieve outcomes
 Strengthen funding applications for internal funding eg more training to improve service
 Highlights areas for improvement
 Better understanding of clients’ expectations
 Helps with funding applications to confirm level of knowledge
For funders
Accountability
 Confidence that funding will be used effectively and therefore able to justify the funding given
 Helps them to see outcomes of their funding
 Reduces reputational risk
 Robust data and meaningful reports about the quality of advice provided
 Confidence that the advisers/organisation has met standards consistently
 Framework for evaluation -makes monitoring easier!
 Clear remit of service
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Reassures funders it is a learning organisation and improving service
Quality
 Assurance that organisations they fund provide consistent high quality advice
 Sets minimum standards that all advice services need to meet
 Peace of mind – reliability/bench mark of quality of advice
 Able to put quality of advice above client financial gain
Investment
 Good quality advice will bring money back into local economy
 Funding services that are needed/meet demand
 Builds trust between funder and advice provider
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Easier to assess – know what to fund, identify future gaps, no need to reinvent the wheel
Improved outcomes
 More likely to achieve outcomes /achieving better outcomes
 Able to evidence outcomes
 Quality advice/standards/plan/outcomes
 Robustness of statistics/reports
 Reduces checks and saves time
For clients
Meets their needs
 Assurance of competence of adviser - reassurance that the agency has achieved recognition for their
quality of work
 Trust and confidence in a reliable and consistent service
 Confident and well trained advisers
 Advice accurate and relevant to them and their circumstances
 Consistency and clarity of service
 Better service and outcomes – money, reduced stress, knowledge. Improved satisfaction even if not
desired outcome.
 Fairer service across Scotland
 Same level/quality of advice from all providers ie free/charging
Brand recognition
 Has to be a ”kite mark” for clients to recognise it’s a quality service on literature or visible within
service.
 Gives visible standard of service – providers and public can see what is being offered and pass on to
others
 If you could choose one thing you think should be a priority for SLAB to ensure
the new accreditation process improves take up of the SNSIAP, support
continuous improvement, is cost-effective, is recognised by the public and
ultimately improves the quality of advice clients receive, what would it be?
Cost
 What is the cost of accreditation and who finances it. Communicate this to advice providers.
 Consider smaller organisations and how charging will be fair and manageable
 Funders could contribute to cost of accreditation
 Cost previously put organisations off.
 Provide affordable training and be clear how it links to the Standards
Communication/Promotion
 Keep all relevant organisations well informed about new process
 Important to dispel myths ie not people telling you what to do
 Provide clear leadership and strong direction
 To improve take-up there is a need for SG/SLAB to promote SNSIAP at a high level eg to funders
 Tailor promotion from different perspectives eg the housing perspective – promotion by SFHA in a
positive way (not about pinpointing weaknesses), also highlight that it is a joint approach.
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Market to decision makers in organisations. Market to funders as well as the advice providers (many
people are both)
Promotion events
Good ,clear communication for service providers and service users
Public awareness needs raised through media. Get people to talk about why they go to a particular
advice service.
Remember the demographic in marketing- make standards understandable for the public
Use early adopters of previous accreditation model
How communicate to the public you are working towards the SNSIAP?
Getting the message out within LA in context of tight budgets. Persuading managers of value
Branding
 How relates to different competencies
 Create quality assurance mark and communicate to public
 Clear recognisable branding – not jargon eg “get advice with confidence”
 Timeline and communication/plenty of notice as to what is happening when
 Present standards to clients “What’s in it for me” – tagline so they understand
Process
 Set out objectives and outcomes and review on regular basis
 Make it compulsory
 Be clear about the timeframe to enable planning
 Think about process for a new advice service
 Looking for a process that is supportive and challenging  Easier process and reporting/ Simplify the format rather than the Standards /make sure robust – not
too easy!/ Simplify form
 Update standards/ update all the information, it is very out of date
 A single case-recording system? – consistent/underpinning the standards
 Prove it’s a level playing field for all organisations/ equality of process for different organisations (eg
CABx and LAs)/ fitness for purpose for different kinds of organisations
 Make sure it’s not a burden – think about volunteers aswell/ not creating a monster!
 Sustainability – not changing requirements every 3 minutes
 SLAB – find a way to include volunteers in formal process -could possibly become ambassadors rather
than seeing it as a burden distracting from advice function
 Work with FCA and other auditors/systems. Map to other quality frameworks.
 Be clear and transparent about equivalence between systems and organisations /Link to other quality
assurance arrangements
 Do not make it a bureaucratic burden. Break down process into chunks – not too onerous
 We all capture things so differently, in so many ways, in so many formats – how get it consistent so
organisations don’t have to collect info 4 times?
 Need to be consequences if fail
Support/guidance
 Key contact – single liaison point. Clear and consistent information.
 Find quality assurance experts who can share knowledge about how to carry out skills audit/pinpoint
knowledge gaps and share that knowledge
 Define what counts as working towards standards
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Meetings to discuss how to meet competencies – clarify what they mean
Clear guidelines on what is expected and showing consistency/fairness between agencies
Support for self-assessment, especially for new organisations. Peer support from those who have done
it
Web-based e-learning
Reassurance & support from SLAB & peers/network. Focus on improvement and helping each other.
Showing how what you do already would already contribute
Design of materials for self assessment/ toolkits/guidance – supportive
FAQs to refer to/case studies
Support and recognition pre-accreditation
Peer review
 Need to be confident in the independence of the peer review – anonymisation, through secure
accounts
 More info on peer review - define peer review and how do it
 Make clear peer reviewers trained and knowledgeable
Work with funders
 Funders should also promote SNSIAP
 Make a requirement of funding
 Funders – recognise and require?
 Explain the interaction between funding and accreditation cycle
For further information contact:
Sarah Hamer, Policy Development Officer, SLAB
Email : SNSIAP@slab.org.uk
Tel: 0131 240 2177
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