Citizens Advice has become an active member of the Age and Advice Network (hosted by Help the Aged). A Citizens Advisory Project Management Board has been established to guide both the SORB and Ageing Projects. Their role was to decide on strategy, oversee the management of the project and check on progress.
Support for the development of materials was also received from members of the Religion and Belief Reference Group.
To maximize the training investment made during the project, all SORB and Age training have been converted into two "bite size" eLearning packages. Positive feedback has been received from the court on the useful tables that can be produced using the system to determine the agreed and disputed facts in a case. Online exchange for employment/discrimination case workers: as a result of the experience of moderating a discussion forum for employment counsellors, an online community has been created.
The knowledge of these advisors is recorded using online collaboration tools such as wikis and blogs.
The national project manager also facilitated contact between bureaus and member of the Religion and Belief Reference Group organisations. The leaflet targeted people from religion and belief and LGBT communities and encouraged volunteers from these sections of the community. The case was taken up as a result of the project and the client was supported in the claim of disability discrimination.
At Barking and Dagenham CAB, a client experiencing sex discrimination at work was awarded £8,500 after a three-day tribunal hearing - the first contested hearing for the caseworker.
The support of bureau chiefs for the project is also reflected in the fact that some bureaus with few resources are determined to fight to keep the momentum of the project going. Local faith and faith-based organizations invited to attend trainings Local event (with Uckfield CAB) for faith and faith-based communities canceled when organizing faith-based and faith-based organization became the subject of a police investigation Plans to contact Faith Forum in Crawley Partnership approach: two training sessions in 2006. Raising awareness of SORB regulations and the project was carried out by reaching out to local faith and belief and LGBT groups.
In addition, some of the agency found that approaching local councils and organizations with support groups for LGBT and religious and faith communities/black and minority ethnic (BME) staff was particularly effective. More ways to connect with a wide range of religion and faith groups are needed. One of the elements of the collaboration with MCB was bringing together their beacon centers with pilot CABs.
One of the beacon centers was in Stanmore, London Borough of Harrow, where there was no SORB pilot bureau. Bureaus have a good practical understanding of their local community, and a clear idea of the groups within their community. Specific strategies are needed when targeting services to LGBT or religious and faith communities, and especially to reach the most excluded people in society.
In general, greater progress was made over the project's 12-month period in building referral schemes between agencies than with external organisations. An important feature of the CAB's national strategy for the provision of discrimination advice is that it must be equally accessible to people living in rural areas, as well as other people who have difficulty accessing advice services.
Some bureaus attempted to find ways to engage with SORB communities where community organizations serving these groups do not already exist, also where working relationships with existing groups have not already been established. Bureaus developed different approaches to dealing with these issues: some invested time and effort in establishing working relationships with. Other offices (such as East Grinstead) worked to build awareness of 'troublemakers' such as GPs and housing associations.
Flintshire CAB encouraged the establishment of an LGBT group through initial outreach and by providing a venue and support for the development of an LGBT community. There is still work to be done to understand why some equality or community organizations refer cases to agencies and others do not. Future work on discrimination counseling will be able to draw on the experience of the project and provide agencies with a much larger range of examples and potential strategies for effective community engagement.
The evaluation shows that for people in rural areas to access counseling services, caseworkers need to provide an outpatient service. Agencies must also be creative and proactive in their approach to making people in rural areas aware of their rights.
Partnerships
Some members of the reference group felt that Training Services could have made more use of their support. The reference group was also used to obtain contacts in the seven geographical areas where the pilot offices were located. These introductions allowed the agencies to establish relationships and begin to raise awareness of the SORB regulations in these religious communities.
Overall, this has been a productive relationship for both the reference group and the Citizens Advice team, and there is a desire to keep the group in place and develop its work further.
Additional benefits
Budget
Long term benefits
Learning and recommendations
The evaluation found that more could be done to support and build on the project's potential to influence local social policy. Offices could do more to report on time and in accordance with agreed formats. Citizens Advice needs to do more to involve bureaus in developing a workable reporting format, to align reporting requirements across projects and to hold bureau chiefs accountable for key project deliverables.
A Memorandum of Understanding should be agreed between Citizens Advice and national partners to clarify expectations. The expected results of agencies and the partner organizations they work with should be negotiated with individual agencies and included in Service Level Agreements. The Equal Opportunities Committee of the Citizens Advice Trustee Board has an important role to play.
Where Citizens Advice plans to develop partnerships at a national level, it should make wider use of the views of agency managers to help identify the opportunities and challenges that may arise at a local level. However, providing in-depth training with high quality external input came at a relatively high cost per learner: we believe this was justified, but future programs will need to do so. One change suggested by delegates was to offer the two-day course over two days, reducing the impact of the training on the agency's workload.
Future courses will also need to ensure coverage of different areas, focusing on concepts and issues where training needs are greatest. The project has enabled the Support Specialist Team to pilot ways to target future discrimination training and inform its future development.
The Age project
To supplement guidance counselor training, an online training tool has been made available to agencies. I found it an excellent way to introduce people to age equality who were unable to attend the in-house training session”. Virtually all the volunteers in the agency used the program and found it excellent (and entertaining)”.
In this non-funded element of the Age Discrimination Project, the range of fact sheets available on Adviceguide has been extended to include one on age regulations. The table below shows the 1,296 members of the public who accessed information about age discrimination in the 5 months after the regulations came into force. Q Call is a 24-hour pre-recorded information service that allows bureaus to ensure that all incoming calls are answered (described in more detail in the SORB chapter).
Below is a sample of bureaus using the Q Call service and the number of age discrimination inquiries in April 2006 and March 2007. The Citizens Advice Press Office has provided bureaus with an "advice column" which they use to raise awareness in the local press.
The Age and Advice Network
TAEN has provided consultancy support to develop the knowledge content of information, training and media materials. This included case studies and regulatory technical information and also helped with quality control of material once written and edited. TAEN also provided information for agency managers and administrators, explaining the implications of the regulations for them as employers.
As agreed with Citizens Advice Scotland, all training and public information materials produced are suitable for use in Scotland and are distributed by Citizens Advice Scotland. Some of the money allocated to the development of an online training package for bureaus (£5,000 of £11,800) was used to purchase a package developed by Kineo. The rest of the allocated money was used to develop further online modules on age discrimination.
Learning
SORB: evaluation summary of actions
Increase in the number of employment discrimination identified by general counsel nationally as recorded on CASE (electronic inquiry recording system). 17 of the 18 delegates surveyed said they would be better able to help advisers identify discrimination. The number of SORB cases reported via CASE increased by 17 percent - SO and 9 percent RB. There was a 50 percent increase in the number of users on the forum in 2007.
Total of 39 SORB cases seen by project bureau (26 SO and 13 RB) Total 224 discrimination cases. All project bureaus delivered a number of f training and outreach sessions through local community. Number of volunteers from minority faiths and beliefs and LGBT communities recruited in these bureaus. Between them, the project bureaus delivered more than 50 sessions providing advice or awareness to local SORB communities.
Volunteer recruitment flyers used by all project offices and also sent to offices in each region with strong equality leadership. All bureaus received a copy of the Leeds Animation Workshop DVD and each project bureau received a copy of the LCF DVD. Citizens Advice, partners and the EHRC will be better informed about the needs and expectations of older and younger people in relation to age discrimination.
A sample of bureaus using Qcall were analyzed and the information is included in section 12 of the main report text. Advisers will be able to advise and take action on behalf of individuals in relation to age discrimination, including
Appendices 3a: HAID survey comments
Appendices 3b: HAID stats
