Page 130 - Reforming Benefits Decision-Making

improve signposting to external organisations by HMCTS staff in Court and
Tribunal Service Centres (who provide the telephone element of Digital
Support). The project aims to work with third party organisations to
understand the scope of their services and their capacity, have a verified list of
signposting options which have met diligence and quality checks, train
HMCTS staff to identify the callers’ needs and signpost them to suitable
services that can meet these needs. We welcome this ambitious project and if
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done right, this will be an important service for all tribunal and court users,
including FTT (SSCS) appellants. However, as explained in paragraph 4.51
above, signposting alone is not enough whilst the advice sector has
insufficient resources to take on more work. HMCTS must therefore ensure
that the signposting project is done in conjunction with the early legal support
and advice work outlined in the Legal Support Action Plan.

379 In particular HMCTS must ensure that signposting is meaningful to prevent referral fatigue.

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