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Join the National Data Consistency Project CLCQ Webinar Series to learn about the main areas of inconsistency in data recording and the new and revised service types. Presented by Polly Porteous from NACLC on 18 July 2019.
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National Data Consistency Project CLCQ WEBINAR SERIES: National Data Consistency Project, main areas of inconsistency, and new and revised service types 18 July 2019 Presented by Polly Porteous, NACLC, dataconsistency@naclc.org.au with much thanks to Carly Hanson, CLCQ, carly@communitylegalqld.org.au
Acknowledgement of country NACLC acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands across Australia on which we are located. Here in Sydney I pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, traditional owners of the land on which the NACLC office is situated. I also pay deep respect to Elders past, present and emerging, and to any and all Aboriginal people attending this webinar.
Webinar Housekeeping Facilitator: Carly Hanson, Community Legal Centres Queensland Recording: This webinar is being recorded and will be available on the Staff Training page of CLCQ website https://communitylegalqld.org.au/clc-staff/staff-training-and-cleas well as in the Resources section of NACLC’s Data Consistency Guide https://naclc.info/DataGuide PowerPoint / webinar materials: Emailed prior to today’s session Available to download from Handouts section of GTW control panel Questions: Questions will be addressed at the end Type your questions/comments into question box on GTW control panel OR Raise your hand and we will unmute your microphone Technical help: carly@communitylegalqld.org.au or use question box in GTW
Data consistency project – history and purpose • Commenced July 2018 • NACLC funding from from AGD and Legal Aid NSW • Joint project between NACLC (Polly) and CLCQ (Carly), with input from Victorian Federation of CLCs (Kieran) • Purpose: • Centres collect, understand and use accurate and consistent data and information about the services they deliver, to inform their service planning and service provision decisions. • State, territory and national governments have reliable Centre data to use for the purposes of NPA as well as reporting and service planning (local, regional, and jurisdictional).
Why is consistency in data recording important? • Analyse emerging trends and policy issues • What services are community legal centres, family violence prevention legal services, ATSILS providing, and to whom? • Is this difference between Centre X and Centre Y because of service delivery or because of their different interpretation of data definitions? • Understand our service delivery model/s • Is the community legal centre model different to FVPLS? To ATSILS? To Legal Aid Commissions? • Are specialist and generalist Centres different? • Reporting to funding bodies: • NPA requires state governments to report using data standards • State govts require targets and reports • PMC and AGD requirements for FVPLS & ATSILS • Advocating for improved funding: • Peak bodies use the data
CLASS data: proportion of legal service types – Australia-wide change over time
Individual Centres in one state – proportion of services in each Centre 2017-18
Data Consistency Guide – Services … cont’d
Key Issue 1. Ongoing legal support that is not representation Problem identified: • NationalData Standards says if not acting for the client then not a Representation Service = need to record multiple Legal Advices / Tasks • In CLSIS all ongoing matters were either minor, medium or major based on number of hours – the relationship between client and solicitor irrelevant • In practice, any legal practice would have one matter file containing filenotes and advice sheets • In CLASS it is hard to see what is happening with client as no easy way to group or view services as one “matter” • Range of ways Centres currently record these: • Multiple Legal Advices and Legal Tasks • One Legal Task with multiple Actions over long period of time • Opening Other Rep Service
Feedback from sector: • About 2/3 of the Centres providing feedback wanted a new Ongoing Legal Support Service • Second preferred option was to redefine Other Representation Service to “Other Representation and Ongoing Legal Services” with sub-categories differentiating between Other Representation Service and Ongoing legal Support Service • Only a few centres said they wanted things to remain as they were: either because they simply didn’t have a model of service provision of providing support to self-represented clients, OR they wanted things to stay simple. … cont’d
Solution: • Create a new stand-alone service type called Ongoing Legal Support Service, defined as follows: In an Ongoing Legal Support Service, a Centre makes an up-front commitment to a client to provide them with ongoing support in their own efforts to resolve a legal matter. The Centre does not act for or represent the client, and does not take carriage of the legal matter. Any communications by the Centre with the client or with third parties about the legal matter make it clear that the Centre is not representing the client • From 1 August 2019, Centres encouraged to use the new service type for new services only (no need to change existing or closed services) • Work with National Data Standards Working Group to get this new type of service recognised • CLASS will create the new Ongoing Legal Support Service now, but NPA reports will map them back to Other Representation, until advised otherwise. … cont’d
Key Issue 2. Secondary consultations Problem identified: • Some Centres record these as Legal Advices with the client being the organization seeking advice on behalf of a client • Some record as Information Service • Some have a separate database / spreadsheet to record these as required by funders Feedback: • Several Centres pointed out that it’s not legal advice if you don’t have the name of the client – has to be Information • Additional fields within CLASS Information Service might allow these to be captured accurately • Alternatively a new Service Type called Secondary Consultation would be good Solution: • Create some new fields within Information Service which allow the identification of that Information Service as a Secondary Consultation • Currently being explored by the CLASS Team
Key Issue 3. Legal Advice -different Other Parties or crosses Civil / Criminal / Family Law Problems identified: • How to record a Legal Advice when a Centre provide a legal advice to one client in one session which involves: • Multiple legal issues across Civil Law, Family Law and/or Criminal Law, and/or • Multiple Other Parties, and/or • Different funding categories. • National Data Standards clearly state these are to be counted only as one legal advice • Creates difficulties in CLASS with future conflict checks and accurately capturing work across the Civil/Family/Criminal Law spectrum • Range of ways Centres currently recording: • Faithful to National Data Standards • Entering Legal Advice with 3 problem types = 3 separate advices • entering different Advices for different Other Parties
… cont’d Solution: • Use CLASS to record separate Advices but then change reporting back-end in CLASS to align Legal Advice counts with National Data Standards • Recording of Legal Advices by the Centre (in CLASS, can use Copy-A-Service): • Record separate Legal Advices for each legal problem type involving different Other Parties • If a Legal Advice has the same Other Parties but crosses Family / Civil / Criminal Law, record as separate Legal Advices • If a Legal Advice crosses two different funding categories, record separate Legal Advices. • CLASS Reporting: NACLC is now investigating changing back-end of CLASS reporting (NPA Reports) so that records of several Advices given by same solicitor on same day = one count of Legal Advice • DataStandards: NACLC talking to DSWG to check if room to move on changing counting rules for Legal Advices
Key Issue 4. Legal Advice v Legal Task Problems identified: • Where a Legal Advice includes substantial time – eg hours or even days – reviewing a client’s documents and/or researching the law, some Centres record this as a Legal Task • In CLASS, Legal Advice doesn’t have field to record time spent Feedback from sector: • Some Centres firmly of view that a complex legal advice should be recorded as Legal Task soas to reflect effort of Centre • Other Centres clear that a Legal Task is different to a Legal Advice because involves interaction with 3rd party and/or preparation of documents Solution: • CLASS to include a field in Legal Advice to record time spent • Data Consistency Guide to include greater clarity about difference between Legal Advice and Legal Task: Reviewing a client’s documents and researching the law to prepare legal advice for the client is all part of a Legal Advice, regardless of the length of time spent or complexity of the legal matters, so long as it does not involve any interaction with a third party or preparing documents for a client to use in legal proceedings. In CLASS, these activities can be recorded in the Legal Advice as Actions.
Key Issue 5: How many Legal Tasks? Problem identified: • Legal Task not a concept Centres were familiar with • CLASS allows an end date for Legal Task • Inconsistencies in how some Centres were recording Legal Tasks: • Some recording every interaction with a 3rd party as a new Legal Task • Some recording new Legal Tasks if work undertaken on different days Feedback • Not useful to define Legal Task as being moment-in-time • Link Legal Task to a clearly defined piece of work Solutions – introduce Ongoing legal Support Service, plus clearer definition of Legal Task: A Legal Task is where a Centre undertakes a discrete, clearly-defined, one-off piece of legal work to assist a Service User in their own efforts to resolve a legal problem, with no commitment to support the Service User beyond the completion of that piece of work. The two main types of work in a Legal Task are reviewing or preparing particular documents for a Service User to use in their legal proceedings; or a limited instance of interacting with a third party to help progress a Service User’s legal matter. A Legal Task can include multiple activities (Actions in CLASS) to finalise the piece of work.
Key Issue 6: Court/Tribunal Representation Problem identified: • When a Centre is acting for a client in Other Rep, what to do when court/tribunal action starts? • Inconsistencies: some Centres were • Changing their existing service from Other Rep to Court/Tribunal • Closing existing Other Rep and opening a new Court/Tribunal Rep service Feedback: • Reasonably evenly split as to best course of action Solution • Close Other Rep and open new Court/Tribunal based on clarified definition of Court/Tribunal Rep: A Court/Tribunal Representation Service is where a Centre provides ongoing representation for a matter that has commenced in a court, tribunal or inquiry, where the Centre provides legal representation to the Service user and takes carriage of the matter in an ongoing, representative capacity. “Commenced” in this context means the matter has been filed in court, lodged in a Tribunal, or accepted for inquiry by a forum such as a Royal Commission.
Summary: What will change for my Centre? • More clarity for your staff and volunteers particularly about Legal Tasks and Ongoing Legal Support Services • For those Centres that don’t do much work assisting self-represented clients – eg Centres with an “Advice and Representation” model – not much will change • For those Centres that do a lot of work that falls short of representation, you should have less difficulty figuring out how to record and count particular bits of work • Community Projects – work still needed – we may seek sector’s input
Tools and resources to support youhttps://naclc.info/DataGuide/Resources
Tool 1 – Case- studies • Available in Resources section of Data Consistency Guide • New Case Studies are being constantly added to as people provide tricky cases for us to advise on • Please use the case studies and if you think they’re wrong – let us know
Tool 4 - Flowchart • Under development • Will take people through decision-trees • Starts with initial visit or phone call from Service User, through to determining if a particular interaction is an Information, Referral, Legal Advice, Legal Task, Non-Legal Support then through to the various ongoing services • Which Service and how many – decision trees help identify when an additional Service needs to be recorded • It will need some tinkering, so once the first draft is available, NACLC will welcome advice about how it might be improved • The aim is that people could download it and edit it (eg taking out stages that are irrelevant to the Centre) • Stay tuned!
Tools 5 and 6 – Training & CLASS Helpdesk • CLASS Team will incorporate Data Consistency webinars in their schedule of online training • This webinar and powerpoint will be available online – through CLCQ website, through NACLC website and via the “Resources” section of the Data Consistency Guide • CLASS will provide advice and help on data definitions via the CLASS Helpdesk Phone 1300 484 498 Email NACLC@classhelp.org.au • CLASS Training at National Conference and Quarterlies (in discussion with state peaks and funding bodies) • Centre-based training – please discuss with CLASS Helpdesk
What’s next? • Revised Data Consistency Guide • Revised Guide available online, in Word and PDF • All resources revised and released • Ongoing training and Helpdesk support • Data Standards Working Group • NACLC asking for DSWG to agree to new service type Ongoing Legal Support Service • If DSWG says no, we will still introduce it in CLASS but map it back to Other Representation, or service type as approved by AGD/ funding bodies • Discussion with funding bodies • NACLC to train state and territory funding bodies on Data Consistency Guide • NACLC to discuss implications for targets • Risk Management Guide • Consult with National PII network • Draft changes to RMG to bring in revised service type definitions and new service type Ongoing Legal Support Service
Thankyou!Contact NACLC for advice or feedback: • General CLASS questions or requests for training, call Helpdesk on 1300 484 498 or email NACLC@classhelp.org.au • For data consistency, email dataconsistency@naclc.org.au • Participate in forums accessible through https://naclc.info/DataGuide/Feedback
