Advising in a pandemic: The new era of ‘blended advice’ in social welfare law

Mant, Jessica ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1070-9326, Newman, Daniel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3735-1026 and O'Shea, Danielle 2024. Advising in a pandemic: The new era of ‘blended advice’ in social welfare law. Public Law 2024 (1) , pp. 86-108. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This article provides original empirical insight into how publicly funded social welfare advice has been transformed by the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws upon original data generated through focus groups and interviews with frontline legal advisors and clients who sought advice relating to social welfare law during the pandemic. It argues that the pandemic has ushered in a new era of ‘blended advice’, in which the advice sector has forged new frontiers by blending face-to-face and remote methods of communication to provide bespoke advice services to different client groups that seek their support in relation to social welfare and appeals to government decisions regarding benefits and housing entitlements. The article situates the new era of blended advice within the context of the gradual shift towards digitised justice processes that was already taking place before the pandemic, which rapidly accelerated following the first lockdown in England and Wales in March 2020. Moving forward into a post-pandemic world, the article advocates the importance of assessing and developing blended advice models that are, firstly, grounded in frontline expertise of this advice sector and, secondly, remain mindful of the hazards of simplistic assumptions about digitisation as a cure-all solution for access to justice, especially given the necessary role of this sector in holding the government accountable for administrative decisions relating to social welfare.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Law Cardiff Law & Politics
Subjects:	K Law > KD England and Wales
Publisher:	Sweet and Maxwell
ISSN:	0033-3565
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 August 2023
Date of Acceptance:	14 June 2023
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2024 19:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/162014

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