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The Quality Mark: a mark of what?
"Now there's the Quality Mark", said the law centre manager, "we don't need to worry about these agencies. We can target our support on those without a QM to improve the quality of their services." I sighed and prepared myself for my usual speech. "But the Quality Mark doesn't measure quality of advice or quality of service, so I don't think it's going to help you much." "Oh", he said, "then what does it measure?" And there's the rub. The Community Legal Service (CLS) and especially its quality assurance system - the Quality Mark (QM) - has taken the advice sector by storm. There has been little opposition or resistance, though some moaning behind closed doors (including from us). Indeed the advice networks have worked closely with the State - and still do - in designing the very system that will police its members. How can this be? Is the QM the best thing since sliced bread? Does this mean we are the only people to have seen negative impact on advice services? And if not, how come the advice sector, skilled at challenging bad behaviour and protective of its independence, finds itself in a submissive and compromised position? In this article we've decided to come out - to challenge the assumptions and expectations that this government initiative has spawned; and to suggest that things might not be as they seem. And maybe to find new friends who have had similar experiences; and hold similar views. And maybe never to get offered more work in the advice sector! Our objections are twofold. Firstly, that the Quality Mark (QM) doesn't measure Quality of Advice or Quality of Service, and indeed undermines Real Quality. Secondly, that the initiative feigns partnership with the sector but really consolidates State power and compromises the sector's independence. Lest we be accused of being unbalanced, what are the good things? Well, the CLS has certainly raised the profile of advice work and does represent the beginnings of a national strategy. This is a good thing and not before time. The encouragement of local strategic approaches represented by CLS Partnerships is also to be welcomed, as is the emerging development role of the Legal Services Commission (LSC). The demands of QM applications will have helped a band of - already professionalised - agencies to examine more systematically what they are doing and clarified their capacity to do it. And the LSC has certainly been winsome and pleasant in their dealings with the sector. Measuring and encouraging real quality So lets come to the first problem: the QM doesn't do what it says it does. Indeed, from our experience, the impact of QM has been to undermine the quality of, and access to, advice services. When a client comes through your door the things they are concerned about are whether they will be dealt with respectfully; whether the advice they get is right, appropriate and useful; whether you give them the support they may ask for; and whether you help them to get the best possible outcome to their problem, including access to other good services. The Quality Mark does not measure any of these things. What the QM does measure is how clearly your intentions are stated (business plans and suchlike), and how well you are organised (policies, systems and procedures). Now we're not against people being well organised. But that's not the same as offering a good advice service. And more crucially, we cannot find the evidence that demonstrates the connection between the two. The truth that comes out of our own experience - especially our close work on the technical quality of advice - is that well organised agencies can offer bad advice and poorly organised agencies, in QM terms, can offer cracking advice. One would think that this somewhat fundamental assumption - good organisation equals good advice/service - would have been tested and proved before the whole sector was turned upside-down. They (the Legal Aid Board as was) were warned of the limitations of this approach (by the 1994 Institute of Advanced Legal Studies report), but the LSC pressed on regardless. Now, new evidence is beginning to emerge about this connection - after the horse has bolted - and it's not looking good. "Quality and Cost", the latest report for the Commission (again from the IALS) concludes that there is no discernible relationship between organisational factors and the quality of advice (para. 10.30). So measures of organisational probity and health do not, after all, act as effective proxies for quality of advice or service. The public, and the sector, is being invited to have confidence in a quality assurance scheme that does not measure and certainly cannot guarantee a quality service. Indeed, aside from the rhetoric of the QM, our practical experience is that advice services are being restricted as a response to CLS/QM. One agency told us that they used to provide in-depth employment advice, but no longer do so because they now concentrate on fulfilling LSC contract conditions in other topics. Another advice centre said they used to take action - successfully - on behalf of clients, but don't now because they can't qualify for a QM with Casework. A number of advisers have told us, mistakenly, that they don't use local services as before because, 'under the QM rules we are not allowed to refer clients to non-QM providers'. One advice agency we know about has been excluded from local networks and referral arrangements because they do not have a QM. We even heard one advice service say that they can no longer refer clients to their own advocacy service because it doesn't have a QM! Increasingly the advice sector, and the way it is described, reflects the bureaucractic requirements of the QM rather than the services needed by, or actually provided to, local people. If your organisational arrangements don't fit one of five types of provider (information, assisted information, general help, general help with casework, specialist), you can't join the club. Rather than working to standards, services are becoming standardised. This understandable quest for simplicity just doesn't take account of the ways things really are, or should be. There are a multitude of places where information and advice is offered outside of formal and professional service settings - day centres, refugee groups, all manner of community-based services and activities. The messages these people are getting is - 'stop it, you're not qualified' - despite the fact that they may be giving good advice. And despite the fact that there may be no alternative service available. So if the QM doesn't measure quality, and indeed undermines quality, what does it do? Power, partnership and independence The second problem is power. The Government has decided to use a stick, not a carrot, to pursue its agenda. At the beginning it was said that having a QM would help agencies to get funding. But now it works the other way round - one must have the QM to retain funding. This is an explicit arm of the LSC strategy - to seek acceptance of the QM as the sector-wide benchmark for quality assurance; with the stated objective to persuade all funders of advice services (most notably local authorities) to require the QM as a condition of funding. This, despite the QM being an untested device, unable to assure what it sets out to assure, before it has been fully implemented and in advance of any evaluation of its impact. Indeed, we do not believe that the Commission has any plans to evaluate the impact of the scheme. In this context, seeking to influence, so directly and deliberately the funding of the whole sector is, in our view, negligent. So, is there a carrot? Does the Government put its own money where its QM is? No sign of that yet. The Commission does not fund any but the tiny minority with contracts. This level of regulation by an outside body, without a direct financial or contractual relationship, is the kind of thing that the Government hesitates to do in the private sector - with its voluntary arrangements and codes of guidance. But it's fair game for the voluntary sector apparently, dependent as it is on public funding. This interventionist and sweeping orthodoxy is, however, highly selective. We have not heard of any requirement for emerging statutory services such as NHS Direct, Care Direct, or PALS to obtain QMs; and we await with interest the requirement that any MPs wishing to continue offering constituency advice sessions must apply for and obtain their QM. The representatives of the Commission expound the Government's partnership approach as a way of disguising the exercise of state power. The CLS is presented as a joint enterprise, based on consultation and with the interests of the public at heart. But who sets the agenda, and takes the decisions? The plans for adviser competences, and other aspects of the 'third generation' QM, have been presented by the Commission as definite intentions. There has been no consultation as to whether these plans are desirable or not. The advice networks are merely invited to help the Commission make their plans a success. Partnership can only work in practice with equal power. Which we don't have with the State. Which is why we need independent advice. Which brings us to the principle of independence. We used to call ourselves rights workers not advice workers. Probably 80+% of advice work involves supporting individual citizens in their various struggles with the State (local or national). What is important in our identity, and our freedom of movement, is that we are outside of the State and prepared to be adversarial with its agents. What is the consequence for our independence if we allow the State to decide how we organise ourselves or how we deliver services to the communities we work with? We agree there should be external accountability for outcomes to the work. But how we get to these outcomes is for us to decide - with those who use our services. We have always had to manage the tension between funder and independence. But, until now, we have never allowed ourselves to be regulated in such operational detail, by the State. A State that is too far removed from local needs to know what works best; and too much part of the problem to decide what the solution should be. So, we worry when we hear the word "partnership" in the context of our relationship with the State. For it prises us away from a clearly stated solidarity with the principle and practice of independent scrutiny and towards a view that a closer working relationship with the State will smooth out misunderstandings or difficulties. We don't think that individuals and communities getting a raw deal is a result of any misunderstanding. It's a result of the unequal distribution of power and wealth, which the advice sector is there to challenge. Our continuing and unreconstructed view is that 'whoever you vote for the Government gets in'. The independent advice sector can only function properly and effectively for its clients if it retains an arms-length relationship with authority and retains a sense of outrage and injustice in its work. Our function is to represent the interests and voice of the individual and the communities with whom we work. We can not do this if we give away our self-determination to organise and deliver appropriate services, in whatever way is necessary to get good results for our clients and communities. Now don't get us wrong, we think its good to talk. But from the perspective of clearly stated interests of the different parties involved. Which might be what? Well we know what our interests are (see above). But what of the Government and the CLS? We know a housing lawyer, who thinks it would be dead neat for the Government - which doesn't like expensive solicitors - if the not-for-profit sector could be positioned as the main suppliers of legal advice. This would save a lot of money and successfully limit the legal aid budget, given how easy it appears to be to control and influence the work of the NFP sector. Is this the real agenda? So what's needed? Now it's clear that everything isn't rosy in the advice sector. We know about poor advice and poor service. We know about managers who are unable to use their resources effectively. We know about advisers who really are not interested in getting a good result for their client. We know about services where funding is cut, and cut, and cut. The question is whether or not the CLS has made these things better. So far, we think not. Future plans for adviser competences will compound the problems of an input approach to quality. On the basis of the Commission's current approach, and recent guidance by IALS, even peer review, which gets us closer to real quality, is likely to be top down and befuddled by old tests of organisational efficiency. At this rate the QM requirements of the future will be an amalgam of organisational input justifications, management audits, transaction criteria assessments, peer reviews, case profiling, mystery shopping escapades, client satisfaction ratings and outcome predictors. Feeding this beast will not leave much room for advice work and we will be truly able to say that the advice sector has gone mad (not to mention quite a few advice managers). Advice services will join the health and teaching professions, measured to death and with similar recruitment problems. So what's the answer? Ours is:
If the Government really wants a vibrant and sustainable independent advice sector it should drop its regulatory role and concentrate on - and make funds available for - service development. This is its proper role. In respect to advice services, it should not be a regulator; and the advice sector should not allow this to continue. Finally, in order to hold the Government to account on its stated aims for the CLS, the advice networks should apply for LSC funding to carry out an independent evaluation into the impact and role of the CLS/QM in providing good quality, affordable justice to all. Come on advice sector - let's all get into gear and remember whose interests we're supposed to be protecting! Andy Benson and Penny Waterhouse Andy Benson and Penny Waterhouse are freelance public sector consultants and researchers, much of whose work is in the independent advice sector. The issues raised in this article are complex and this is the first not the last word. They would like to know whether others in the advice sector agree with their perspective or think they are off-the-wall. Responses please to: pa@penandy.demon.co.uk or to: 21, Yoakley Road, London N16 0BH. Tel: 020-8800 7509. Fax: 020-7502 1727. This article first appeared in the Adviser magazine in November 2001 |
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