One million supported by our Legal Advice Service last year 

Published: 25 Jun 2024

This year, Working Families’ Legal Advice Service marks a significant milestone – empowering parents and carers for a quarter of a century. In that time, we’ve been a lifeline for those in times of need, coming to the rescue of thousands during the uncertainty of the pandemic, and providing guidance to people every day who are desperate and have exhausted other avenues. 

In the past, we often didn’t know the outcome of parents and carers accessing our information or advice. So last year, we implemented new methods to gather information on how our advice affects the actions parents and carers take and what happens as a result. It helps us to know so we can evolve the service to suit people’s needs, and demonstrate that we are having an impact when applying for crucial funding to keep the service going. The data we have collected so far has confirmed what we had hoped – that the advice we give makes a real and tangible difference to people’s lives. You can read the full report here, and more about our 25 year history here.  

A deep dive into the numbers 

In terms of numbers, visitors to our information and guidance pages on the website have more than quadrupled to around a million in the past ten years. We see this as a positive. It means that anyone in the country can access the 200+ pages of legally-sound advice whenever they need it. It also means that most straightforward queries can be answered on the website, leaving the more complex scenarios to be dealt with by our in-house experts, who last year provided personalised legal advice to over 1,500 parents and carers via phone and email. 

The people using our service are from all walks of life, but the service is going a considerable way to meet our goal of empowering those with the least access to justice, with those living in relative poverty accounting for a third of helpline users and 6 in 10 earning less than the Minimum Income Standard, which is deemed necessary for an acceptable standard of living.  

The difference we’re making 

So, what does the information we’ve gathered tell us about what happens once parents and carers have received our advice? Not only did people feel better informed, but also a huge majority felt empowered to act on the advice given. For those receiving benefits advice, 1 in 2 had increased their income, and our advisers supported helpline users to access over £150,000 in unclaimed benefits.   

Twenty-five years on, the findings provide reassurance that our Legal Advice Service continues to provide robust, relevant advice that is making a real-life difference to parents and carers. As families struggle with the cost-of-living, unscrupulous employers, a lack of access to flexible working and a scarcity of adequate, affordable childcare, the service unfortunately still has a crucial role to play in ensuring parents and carers understand and can use their rights to achieve a better life for their families.