• Meeting the challenges in Legal Advice
• What are National Occupational Standards?
• What National Occupational Standards are available?
• Uses of National Occupational Standards
• What are the benefits of using National Occupational Standards
• Planning to use National Occupational Standards
• Whose responsibility are National Occupational Standards?
• Making the business case for National Occupational Standards
• Downloads

LA3 Develop and manage interviews with clients

This is a new Unit that has been developed for the independent Legal Advice Sector.
It has been developed in the format agreed for the NOS for Legal Advice.

Unit Summary

This Unit is for you if you are involved with establishing a supportive working relationship with clients and helping them to explain their needs. You will need to be able to make the client feel at ease and also be able to explore any additional information about the client, which may be important in providing appropriate help. You must also be able to recognise when there is a need to take immediate action and follow the appropriate processes for doing so. You may also have to cope with clients who may be abusive or violent and know how to do this safely.

The Unit requires you to:

• Enable clients to explore their problems and concerns
  
• Manage the interview process
• Bring interviews to an end

1. Create an atmosphere and environment in which clients feel comfortable enough to express their problems and concerns
2. Clarify if any other service is providing advice and support to client and follow organisational procedures if this is the case
3. Identify and recognise clients' circumstances, responsibilities and priorities
4. Provide clients with opportunities to explore their issues
5. Explore the issues raised by clients to establish their nature and scope
6. Summarise clients' issues and check own understanding with client
7. Identify any situations where immediate action is required to assist clients and take the appropriate action
8. Recognise and follow organisational procedures where the client may be excluded from receiving the service or not eligible to receive the service
9. Work within own area of competence
   
10. Comply with all relevant legislation, codes of practice, guidelines and ethical requirements, including potential conflict of interests

You must know:

• The types of atmosphere and environment that are appropriate to different clients
• What situations could make clients feel uncomfortable and how to minimise them
• Organisational procedures for when a client is receiving advice and support from another agency and why it is important to establish this
• Why it is important to recognise clients' circumstances and priorities
• Ways of providing opportunities to the client for exploring issues
• The kinds of issues that might occur and how they should be explored
• Ways of establishing the nature and scope of different issues
• How to summarise issues
• The kinds of situations that require immediate action and how to deal with them
• Reasons why clients may be excluded from the service and organisational procedures for addressing the situation
• Reasons why clients may not be eligible to receive the service

The skills you will need to enable you to deliver the service effectively are:

• Questioning
• Active listening
• Presenting information
• Summarising
• Reviewing/reflecting
• Prioritising
• Reviewing
• Negotiating
• Decision making
• Challenging
• Time management
• Interviewing

Unit LA49: First line welfare rights legal advice

Unit Summary

This Unit is designed to equip you with a broad understanding of the knowledge required to provide clients with welfare rights information and advice at the point of initial contact with the service and to decide when to refer a client on to more specialist sources of advice.

In this Unit the term 'welfare benefits' includes social security benefits, tax credits, the social fund and war pensions.

The Unit supports the generic National Occupational Standards for Legal Advice.

To meet the National Standard you must be able to:

• Identify and explain the legislative framework relating to welfare benefits
• Explain the current structure of the welfare benefits system and the nature of the key agencies involved in the administration of benefits at local and national level
  
• Define the differences, relationship and interaction between different types of benefit
• Describe how to identify the eligibility criteria for all benefits relevant to specific client groups and explain how entitlement may be affected by individual circumstances
• Explain how to calculate benefit entitlement and make benefit claims for clients in a range of different circumstances
• Describe which groups of people are treated differently under the benefits system
• Explain how to recognise where benefit may be overpaid or underpaid
• Explain how to recognise changes in legislation or benefit regulations and the impact of such changes on the advice given
• Describe appropriate options for maximising benefit income
• Explain the legal position and what action should be taken in cases of benefit overpayment or fraud
• Describe the relevant procedures for challenge, including appropriate appeals procedures
• Describe the range of support services, concessions and other sources of financial assistance available to different categories of clients and explain how to help clients in making applications for relevant assistance
• Describe the nature and purpose of the Child Support Agency (CSA) and how it may impact on benefits

You must show that you know and understand:

1. The legislative framework relating to welfare benefits
2. The current structure of the welfare benefits system, including the difference, relationship and interaction between:
   1. Means-tested benefits
   2. Non-means-tested benefits
   3. Tax credits
4. The nature of agencies involved in the administration of welfare benefits, locally and nationally
5. The potential eligibility for all benefits relevant to specific client groups
6. How entitlement may be affected by clients' circumstances, including:
   1. Disability
   2. Age
   3. Immigration status
   4. Household structure
   5. Housing status
8. How to identify the effect on benefit entitlement of changes to an individual's circumstances
9. How to calculate benefit entitlement and which people are treated differently under the benefits system, including older people, people with disabilities, students and those in residential care
10. How to make benefit claims, taking account of:
    1. The procedure for making claims
    2. Which department of the relevant organisation is responsible
    3. Time limits
    4. Rules and time limits for backdating and late claims
    5. Relevant evidence
11. How to recognise cases where benefit may be being overpaid or underpaid
12. How to keep up-to-date with major changes in legislation or benefit regulations and how this impacts on advice
13. The appropriate options for maximising benefit income
14. The legal position and the action required by your organisation when a client is claiming fraudulently
15. The framework of appeals procedures, the options for challenging welfare benefits decisions and the relevant time limits
16. The range of local support services and concessions available to different categories of clients
17. The detail of other sources of financial assistance and how to assist with applications, including:
    1. Social security payments
    2. Local authority payments
    3. Charities
    4. Passported health-care benefits
    5. Educational benefits
18. The nature and purpose of the Child Support Agency (CSA) and how it may impact on benefits