https://www.slab.org.uk/advice-agencies/scottish-national-standards-for-information-and-advice-partners/type-2-3-accreditation/
https://www.slab.org.uk/advice-agencies/scottish-national-standards-for-information-and-advice-partners/type-2-3-accreditation/
The step-by-step guide below sets out what you have to do to gain Type II/III accreditation. Please email AdviceAudit@slab.org.uk if you are still unsure of what is required in relation to self assessment and audit.
Before continuing, you should have already checked that you advice agency is considered Type II or III under the SNSIAP.
Please note, some sections expand by navigating with the small blue dots below boxes
Do you regularly check the quality of your advisers' work? If you do, move to Step 2.
If you do not, please view the 'Are you ready for Peer Review?' guidance for more information on the importance of case checking to peer review and accreditation.
Accreditation begins with self assessment.
You should read the Self Assessment Guidance, view the presentation and organisational guidance slides and use these to complete the Self Assessment and Application Form.
You can also find out more about self assessment here.
To collect, process, store or share personal information for the purpose of applying for SNSIAP accreditation, you must comply with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations 2016 (GDPR).
Most (but not all) agencies will be required to obtain consent from clients that their case files can be shared with third parties for the purposes of quality assurance. We can only peer review cases from these agencies that have this specific client consent. Other agencies may be able to rely on a different legal basis under GDPR for sharing their client case files and further information about this is available on the ICO website.
You can only share your client case files with SLAB and peer reviewers if you take steps to comply with the requirements of the GDPR. Most agencies will do this by asking for their clients’ consent. You must check that you are asking your clients for the correct type of consent to allow you to share their data with us and the peer reviewers. Go to the Sharing client data and client consent and data protection sections if you need more information about how they relate to this peer review process.
When you apply for peer review you will need to send us a list of all your housing and/or welfare benefits and/or money/debt cases from the past 12 months. We will then select cases from that list for peer review. Your list must only include cases that have third party consent (or can be shared for other reasons set out by the GDPR) and meet the definitions of Type II or Type III casework.
If you are already booked for peer review please go to Step 5.
If not, please email SNSIAP@slab.org.uk.
Before your peer review takes place we will send you a Peer Review Questionnaire (PRQ) and a timetable for the two months leading up to your peer review.
We will pick 20 cases per topic (Housing, Welfare Benefits, Money/Debt) from your completed Case Selection Grid. You will then be asked to provide a description of the case matter, confirmation of whether the case is open or closed and what competences are covered in the case.
Type II and III cases are assessed in exactly the same way. The 20 cases are a random selection of your advice work in that topic - they do not need to cover every competence your agency gives advice on, for example all 15 Housing Competences.
You have to either upload the 20 cases that have been selected to the secure file sharing platform used by SLAB or give the peer reviewers remote access to your files via a case management system, such as AdvicePro. You should then confirm with us when you have completed this.
If you are a CAB using CASTLE, please refer to the guidance (available as a Word document) issued by CAS.
We will then randomly select 12 cases per topic for peer review.
The peer reviewers will assess your case files and write their report. This report will be sent to us and will be considered by the Moderation Committee at their next meeting.
These meetings take place once every three months and the Committee make the final decision on the outcome of an agency’s peer review.
We will send you the Moderation Committee decision letter and a copy of all the peer review reports written about your agency.
You should email the Performance Auditors at AdviceAudit@slab.org.uk as soon as you receive notification of your Peer review outcome to arrange an audit date.
Once you have agreed an audit date with the Performance auditor, you should email the Scottish Government when you are ready to apply for audit and accreditation. You must include:
If not already agreed, our auditor will contact your agency as soon as possible after receiving the information from the Scottish Government and agree a date for a desktop audit review in the following quarter depending on auditor availability.
The auditor will also explain what information you will need to provide and when.
There will be a commitment by all agencies to ensure that all actions, requests, and documentation requested and agreed with the SNSIAP audit function is provide in the agreed timelines.
Failure to comply with these requirements will result in an agencies application for accreditation to be stopped, which where appropriate will result in the organisation being removed from the list of accredited agencies immediately or when the current accreditation lapses.
Agencies will then be required to make a further application for accreditation to the Scottish Government and the SNSIAP audit function will determine when or if this would be able to be conducted, dependent on your previous peer review outcome dates and capacity of the SNSIAP audit function.
Submit your SNSIAP Self Assessment and Application Form (and all supporting documents), and your Moderation Committee decision letter to the file sharing system used by SLAB for the auditor a minimum of five weeks before the audit visit or desktop review takes place.
The audit visit or desktop review will then take place on the agreed date.
For more information, see our What to expect from audit? page.
