Introduction

This toolkit is provided to help services to use the National Occupational Standards for Legal Advice. It has been primarily produced for the use of managers and training officers but some sections are relevant to individual workers who provide Legal Advice.

Please note that the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Legal Advice have been revised since the publication of this Toolkit. All of the unit codes and some of the unit titles have now changed. For the most up to date version of the NOS, please visit our NOS Finder toolkit.

The toolkit is designed to offer practical guidance on the uses of National Occupational Standards (NOS) at the managerial, organisational and individual level. It is structured to enable ease of use and referenced to provide clarity on which sections are relevant for different users. It contains step-by-step guidance on implementing standards and checklists for action. You may find other ways of using the NOS that are appropriate to the context in which you are working, if you do, please let us know as part of our role as a standards setting body is to disseminate examples of good practice throughout the sector. Case studies and ‘good-practice’ examples will be included at a later date.

You can use this material to brief yourself and others
The presentation can be used as it is, or adapted to meet the needs of individual organisations
The information has been produced in a ring binder format so it can be updated easily with new or revised information
Individual networks may include additional information relevant to their specific members

The National Occupational Standards for Legal Advice were developed by representatives of the Legal Advice sector in recognition that steps were needed to create a more coherent career development path for advisors and to improve the quality and consistency of Legal Advice for the general public. There is a need to raise the profile of Legal Advice generally in order to encourage new entrants to the sector and increase transferability of skills for a workforce that spans a diverse range of organisations in the private, not-for-profit and public sectors.

Practitioners from a wide range of advice provision that reflects the diversity of the Legal Advice sector were involved at each stage of the development. A steering group of the key networks (see section A, page 2 for a full list) initiated and led the standards development process and will continue to oversee the process for updating and reviewing the Legal Advice NOS and the content of this toolkit in partnership with Skills for Justice (the Sector Skills Council for the justice sector).

The Legal Advice NOS can be obtained from www.ukstandards.co.uk or www.skillsforjustice.com.

The programme to develop the Legal Advice NOS has been running in parallel with a detailed workforce survey and skills foresight analysis that will provide data about the make up and needs of the Legal Advice workforce. Details of this and the background to the NOS can be found on www.NOS4advice.org.uk.