Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

(1) A local authority must establish and maintain a service for providing people in its area with information and advice relating to care and support for adults and support for carers.

(2) The service must provide information and advice on the following matters in particular--
(a) the system provided for by this Part and how the system operates in the authority's area,
(b) the choice of types of care and support, and the choice of providers, available to those who are in the authority's area,
(c) how to access the care and support that is available,
(d) how to access independent financial advice on matters relevant to the meeting of needs for care and support, and
(e) how to raise concerns about the safety or well-being of an adult who has needs for care and support.

(5) Where none of the needs of the adult concerned meet the eligibility criteria, the local authority must give him or her written advice and information about--
(a) what can be done to meet or reduce the needs;
(b) what can be done to prevent or delay the development of needs for care and support, or the development of needs for support, in the future.

(1) Where it appears to a local authority that a child is likely to have needs for care and support after becoming 18, the authority must, if it is satisfied that it would be of significant benefit to the child to do so and if the consent condition is met, assess—
(a) whether the child has needs for care and support and, if so, what those needs are, and
(b) whether the child is likely to have needs for care and support after becoming 18 and, if so, what those needs are likely to be.

(2) An assessment under subsection (1) is referred to in this Part as a “child's needs assessment”.

...

(5) Where a local authority, having received a request to carry out a child's assessment from the child concerned or a parent or carer of the child, decides not to comply with the request, it must give the person who made the request—
(a) written reasons for its decision, and
(b) information and advice about what can be done to prevent or delay the development by the child of needs for care and support in the future.

[Section 60 of the Care Act makes identical provisions for a CHIL'S CARER'S ASSESSMENT in respect of the support needs of a child's carer after the child turns 18. This includes the duty to provide information and advice set out in sub-section 5.]

3.8 In this section of guidance, the term ‘information’ means the communication of knowledge and facts regarding care and support. ‘Advice’ means helping a person to identify choices and/or providing an opinion or recommendation regarding a course of action in relation to care and support.

3.9 This section of guidance also uses the term ‘advocacy’ to mean supporting a person to understand information, express their needs and wishes, secure their rights, represent their interests and obtain the care and support they need.

3.10 This guidance talks about ‘financial information and advice’ which includes a broad spectrum of services whose purpose is to help people plan, prepare and pay for their care costs. In places it talks of ‘independent’ financial information or advice which in this document means services independent of the local authority. This guidance also refers to ‘regulated’ financial advice which means advice from an organisation regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which can extend to individual recommendations about specific financial products. Local authorities should ensure that people are able to access all of these types of financial information and advice which help people plan and pay for their care.

Information and advice about support, services or benefits

• Information – refers to the provision of factual information relating to the domain or topic at hand, but without exploring the relative merits of different options.

• Advice – refers to the provision of in-depth interaction with an individual. It includes the explanation of information and how to access and use the information.

• Guidance – refers to the specific needs of the individual and may involve a session or series of sessions between an individual and a skilled and trained advisor.

The definition of 'guidance' from the Matrix Quality Standard will not have been drawn up with adult social care specifically in mind, since Matrix doesn't (yet) appear to operate in the adult social care sector.