§ Mr. DjanoglyTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs how the new Community Legal Services Directory line will be monitored for(a) quality of advice, (b) access to advice and (c) capacity. [185262]
§ Mr. LammyThe new Community Legal Service (CLS) Direct telephone has been designed to produce management information that will enable all key aspects of service to be monitored closely.
Advice delivered through the telephone service is subject to the same CLS specialist quality mark assurance that applies to CLS-funded face to face advice. There is also an additional set of quality requirements that apply solely to telephone advice, and telephone contractors are audited against these criteria. A sample of the advice given by the telephone contractors will also be subject to peer review by recognised experts, to ensure that it is of high standard.
The statistics generated relating to CLS Direct will give the Legal Service (LSC) an excellent new method of surveying where and how advice is accessed, the areas where demand for advice is greatest, and how this compares with supply. Telephone advice offers an easy means of accessing advice for people with disabilities, people in remote areas and people who have caring responsibilities. The LSC uses client feedback surveys to monitor whether telephone advice is effectively reaching these groups.
The number of calls received and cases opened will be monitored to establish trends. The telephone service can be easily scaled up to keep pace with demand. Advice providers within CLS Direct are contracted to deliver an agreed volume of advice hours per year, and one of the criteria the LSC used to select contractors was their ability to expand their number of advice hours if required.