All about Advice Central

Why ?

About the national programme

In 2012, the Cabinet Office & BIG Lottery came together to provide an advice service
improvement programme and funding.

Who?

Our partnership, based on our locality of Central Bedfordshire, is made up of;

The Disability Resource Centre

Age UK – Bedfordshire

CAB – Dunstable and District

CAB – Leighton Linslade

CAB- Ampthill

What?

Projects run in every local authority (locality based) and must meet these outcomes;

1. Advice organisations need to work closely and effectively with each other, to improve service
outcomes for customers

2. Local advice services need to prove they are resilient and well-equipped to meet future needs, with modern and enterprising business working and able to look for other sources of funding.

How?

Develop a single point of Access through a virtual hub that deals with all social and welfare advice enquiries
in Central Bedfordshire

Create an IT system that will allow trained assistants to triage and if needed, arrange an appointment with a specialist advisor in any of the partners venues

Refer on to other support as identified in triage

Set up different ways to access the virtual hub

Train Volunteers to be able to deliver the service

When?

Process stages and flows devised – February 2014

Process detail in full – May 2014

IT system designed and procured – May 2014

IT system tested – Sept 2014

Portal, Website and Telephone point operational – March 2015

Monitoring – ongoing

Evaluation June – November 2015

Advice Central – What is it and why is it needed?   

BIG Lottery has funded projects for charities to provide advice services for many years. BIG want to help the charity sector transform and adapt to new ways of funding by modernising its services and making best use of technology. In order to survive and thrive, the independent advice sector will also need to be more enterprising and business-minded. This will help reduce duplication and bring providers together to be more efficient and effective. By having better systems and using new technology it will also be easier to measure the difference services can make to people’s lives.

In 2012, the Cabinet Office alongside BIG Lottery came together to provide an advice service improvement programme and funding to meet these objectives. The programme started in 2012 with individual 2-year projects starting at different points in the programme.

We will keep you updated with the progress of AdviceCentral at regular intervals. If you would like to find out more in the meantime, email us:  info@advicecentral.org.uk

AdviceCentral is provided by:

AdviceCentral is provided by: