Social welfare advice good business model

Mon,21 July 2014
News

Social  Welfare  Advice  Services: A Review

The Low Commission which earlier this year published its report on a future strategy for social welfare advice, in light of legal aid cuts, has now published a major follow up work on the economic value of social welfare advice. A research review undertaken by Graham Cookson, an economist at the University of Surrey, presents compelling evidence from different sources that social welfare advice saves public services money.

Looking at all work to date on Cost Benefits Analysis (CBA) and Social Return on Investment data, the report finds that legal aid not only pays for itself, but it also makes a significant contribution to families/ households, to local area economics, and also contributes to significant public savings.

Different studies done in the UK, US, Canada and Australia have all demonstrated similar findings that for every pound or dollar invested, there’s a multiple of 10 in the savings produced by, for example, keeping people their homes with jobs and incomes intact rather than having to utilise expensive crisis and emergency services.

The review shows that legal advice across different categories of law result in positive outcomes for clients and their households. Finally the review also calls for further evaluation of advice services to establish more data on effectiveness and value for money.

The report also gives examples, based on existing research, of the cost effects where social welfare reforms are not resolved:

  • Removal of legal aid for welfare benefits cases will have a substantial, immediate impact on disabled people, and that these changes might offset the measures put in place by the government to support disabled people to get into work and out of poverty.
  • Advice enables disabled people get a fair outcome in decisions about their benefits, ensures that barriers are overcome in negotiating the complexity of social welfare law, and may prevent the need for costly appeals.
  • There is a danger that if disabled people are no longer able to access advice there will be significant impact on their ability to maintain independence, reduce their capacity to cope with the additional costs, and potentially undermine their ability to remain employed.
  • There is some evidence that debt advice can reduce the risk of unmanageable debt and prevent the onset of mental health problems.
  • the cost of unresolved social welfare issues are estimated to be £1billion per year for young adults aged between 16 and 24 years old.
  • Young adults are more likely to need advice when they have problems than other age groups, because their problems have greater impact, and receiving advice has been shown to result in better outcomes [the situation would be worse for young disabled adults].

You can view the review at http://www.lowcommission.org.uk/News/New-Research-Economic-review-of-social-welfare-advice