Factors affecting welfare advice access across communities
Social welfare legal advice is there to help people with problems related to issues such as:
- Benefits
- Debt
- Employment
- Housing
- Immigration
- Social care.
The research, carried out by a team of experts from The University of Manchester, GMCVO, Bangor University, University of Exeter, and UK Advice Services Alliance, examined how community characteristics and social networks impacted how people gain access to social welfare legal advice. To achieve this, the team looked at four different case study areas – Greater Manchester, Anglesey, Dartmouth and London Borough.
This research was funded by The British Academy and Nuffield Foundation, as part of an 'Understanding Communities' £1.1 million research programme. The research team conducted 191 interviews with individuals to map out:
- Who they might turn to with any problems relating to social welfare
- Who they spoke to on a regular basis, such as friends, family, work colleagues, carers and community volunteers.
The team also examined how many of these different contacts knew each other in the community, to determine how well-connected the person's social network in the community was.
As well as talking to individuals, the research team also spoke to local authorities, formal and informal advisers and community organisations - identifying available sources for social welfare legal advice in each case study area.
You can read the full report on the Social Welfare Legal Advice and Communities website.
Findings
The study's findings showed that community-embedded services that are sensitive to different cultures were essential in making advice available to people.
However, it revealed that many service providers currently face many challenges, including:
- Issues with recruiting and retaining staff
- Funding services
- Building trust and awareness amongst their local communities.
The research therefore calls on policymakers to increase funding to these services to help them address these challenges, while also strengthening community access to social welfare legal advice. Meanwhile, it has also recommended that the advice sector ensures it is continually engaging with different communities while making sure the appropriate (digital) support is available to them.
Ensuring communities can access vital support
Dr Sara Closs-Davies, a member of the research team and Senior Lecturer in Accounting, Finance and Tax at Alliance Manchester Business School, said: "The last few years have been challenging for the social welfare legal advice sector, with challenges like the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis worsening existing issues while bringing up entirely new problems for the sector to deal with."
"Through this research, we are hoping to not only shine a light on what these challenges are, but also provide recommendations for policymakers and those within the sector to help address these difficulties, ensuring that our different communities across the country have appropriate access to this type of support which can also help improve wellbeing and alleviate social inequality."
The research team was led by Dr Sarah Nason (Bangor University) and included Dr Sara Closs-Davies (Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester), Dr Susanne Martikke (GMCVO), Dr Lorien Jasny and Susanne Hughes (University of Exeter), Lindsey Poole and Faith Osifo (UK Advice Services Alliance), and Dr Peter Butcher (Bangor University).
You can read the full report on the Social Welfare Legal Advice and Communities website.