The role of communities and connections in social welfare legal advice

This project will assess how people from different localities and marginalised and/or diverse communities access social welfare law advice. It aims to increase our understanding of relationships between communities and access to justice and identify opportunities to improve access to social welfare law advice.  

Social welfare law includes welfare benefits, debt, employment, housing, immigration, education, and community care. People experiencing problems in these areas often have very low incomes, compounded by limited access to legal aid. There is little research on the whole range of organisations providing social welfare law advice services; less is known about the help-seeking behaviour of people with complex and interlinked problems. The demand for social welfare law advice is growing, yet the capacity of the voluntary sector is shrinking and changing to a remote advice delivery model. Small locally based organisations, with connections across diverse communities, can play an important role, but there is little understanding of how they interact with communities and the broader advice sector. This research gap reduces the ability of policy makers and practitioners to respond to local needs and overcome barriers to access.  

The research team will conduct a literature review, stakeholder workshops, survey of social welfare law advice providers, focus groups, interviews with people with SWL advice needs, and social network analysis in four case-study areas: Anglesey, Dartmouth, Greater Manchester, and a London Borough. 

 Key research questions include: 

• How does access to social welfare law advice affect the connectedness, equality, and well-being of communities? 
• How do community characteristics of equality, connectedness and well-being relate to advice provision and people’s advice seeking behaviours? 
• Which local organisations offer social welfare law advice within the case-study communities, what modes of delivery are offered, what challenges do organisations face, and what non-local services are available? 
• How do people within case-study communities seek to resolve social welfare law problems, what barriers exist, and how can providers reduce these? 
• How do perceptions of service provision differ between social welfare law practitioners and community members? 
• How do the social networks of those receiving advice compare to people who are not finding advice, what are the differences between informal and formal advice seeking networks, and how do networks compare across case-studies? 

The main research report will be released with an executive summary in both English and Welsh. A series of short, thematic briefing papers will be targeted at key stakeholder audiences, including local authorities, the Ministry of Justice, Welsh Government Justice Policy Team and Prosperous Futures Department, and advice sector practitioners. The social network analysis and mapping exercises will generate computer visualisations and graphics to illustrate community connectedness.