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Sector Survey

Understanding Knowledge in the Voluntary Legal Advice Sector
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Questions marked with an * are required Exit Survey
 
 
[1 of 6] Your Organisation
 
 
* Please indicate whether any of the following apply to your organisation
 
My organisation considers itself part of the voluntary legal advice sector (VLAS)
 
My organisation is a registered charity
 
My organisation provides legal advice as part/all of its charitable activities
 
My organisation is an umbrella or resource-giving body for charitable organisations that provide legal advice.

 
Approximately what percentage of your organisation's work comprises legal advice and/or legal assistance?
*  
-
 
 
 
* Where does your organisation operate? Select one or as many as apply.
 
All of England & Wales
 
All of England
 
All of Wales
 
North West England
 
North East England
 
Midlands
 
East of England
 
South East England (excluding London)
 
London
 
South West England

 
 
Optional: your organisation's closest town/city (in case regional patterns emerge)
   
 
 
* Your role in the organisation:
 
 
 
How would you rate your organisation at:
 
 
* Acquiring or developing knowledge
 
 
* Managing knowledge and ensuring it is available for use
 
 
* Transferring knowledge from those who have it to those who don't
 
 
* Retaining knowledge when people leave, projects end, etc
 
 
[2 of 6] The Voluntary Legal Advice Sector (VLAS): Looking Back
 
In the last 18 months, has your organisation experienced any of the following?
Yes No
* Substantial increase in income (40%+ increase)
* Some increase in income
* Income has stayed the same but funding sources have changed
* Income & funding sources have stayed the same
* Some decrease in income
* Increase has decreased significantly (over 40% decrease)
 
 
In the last 18 months has your organisation experienced departures from any of the following groups due to:
Everyday turnover Retirement Redundancy Project funds depleted N/A
* General volunteers
* Specialist volunteers
* Junior-mid level staff
* Senior staff
* Specialist staff/advisers
* Trustees
 
 
 
* Think about your organisation's external VLAS network i.e. other voluntary legal advice sector organisations with whom you might collaborate, seek/share expertise, give/receive referrals, etc.

Over the last 18 months have you experienced any of the following across your organisation's external network?
 
VLAS organisations scaling back their activities
 
VLAS organisations closing down
 
VLAS organisations merging
 
VLAS organisations expanding their activities
 
New VLAS organisations opening up
 
An overall increase in the size of our external network
 
No change in the size of our external network
 
An overall decrease in the size of our external network
 
None of the above

 
 
[3 of 6] The Voluntary Legal Advice Sector (VLAS): Looking Forward
 
How likely do you think each of the following predictions are in the next 5 years across England & Wales?

Select a figure from 0-100% for each box where 0 = "I do not expect this to happen" and 100 = "I am 100% certain this will happen".
* "The number of VLAS organisations will increase"
-
* "The number of VLAS organisations will decrease due to mergers"
-
* "The number of VLAS organisations will decrease due to closures"
-
* "Many VLAS organisations will restructure or reinvent what they do"
-
* "My organisation will survive"
-
* "My organisation will restructure or merge"
-
* "My organisation will close"
-
 
 
Think about your organisation's current areas of focus/concern. Are any of the following what you would class as:

(i) A current concern for your organisation - an issue that you are focusing on or need to focus on?

(ii) A priority: one of 1-3 issues that your organisation is prioritising and would direct any new income towards ahead of other concerns?
Concern Priority (up to 3)
Staff development
Strategic planning
Developing new projects
Managing quality
Fundraising
Improving governance
Improving existing projects
Managing performance
Impact Reporting
Streamlining internal processes / management
Managing knowledge
Creating external strategic partnerships
Identifying new income streams
 
 
If you have other priorities, please list them briefly here.
   
 
 
[4 of 6] Assessing VLAS knowledge
 
How would you class the following examples of knowledge that might be held by an organisation in the VLAS?


KEY

"General knowledge" = everyday knowledge that any organisation in the voluntary sector would be expected to hold as standard - doesn't take very long to acquire as it is already held.

"Relevant knowledge" = knowledge that an organisation operating in the VLAS should hold in order to achieve its aims. May take time to develop this knowledge once operating in the sector.

"Critical knowledge" = crucial knowledge for a VLAS organisation, the loss of which could have a serious impact on it. May take a considerable period of time to develop this knowledge; it may be linked to specific resources (physical resources, specialist staff etc) that are brought in or developed from scratch.
General knowledge Relevant knowledge Critical knowledge
* Experience in working with clients, many of whom may be from vulnerable groups or require specialist assistance
* An understanding of how and when to bring in additional / external help on a case
* Working relationships/networks with other individuals in the VLAS
* Specialism in relevant areas of law for client needs
* Awareness of available resources and how to use them to access relevant information for clients
* Experience in working with others as part of a team either within the organisation or as part of wider teams across the sector
* Understanding how to design and implement new projects (processes, costing, project management, etc)
* Experience gained from previous projects, pilots and activities (failures, lessons learnt, successes, etc)
* An understanding of finance (cashflow, budgets and full cost recovery).
* Awareness of funding history and relationships with funding bodies
* HR expertise
* Collaborative relationships with other organisations and umbrella bodies
* Experience in general operational issues for operating in the VLAS
* Awareness of regulatory issues for operating in the VLAS
* Processes and procedures that enable the organisation to operate its activities
 
 
[5 of 6] Knowledge activities in the VLAS
 
Does your organisation use any of the following:
Yes - Regularly Sometimes - would like to do more No - we'd like to do it though No - has no impact on what we do
* Functional job descriptions for all roles and formal inductions (regularly updated to reflect role changes and new responsibilities)
* Involvement in clusters of knowledge / communities of practice - internal or external to the organisation
* External networks and collaborative relationships with other organisations and bodies across the sector
* Individual training plans; regular access for staff/volunteers to seminars, lectures, lunchtime meetings and conferences relevant to their work
* Regular reporting processes for lessons learned through past challenges and opportunities (e.g. after action reports, critical incident interviews)
* Communication and innovation processes to ensure ongoing attempts to improve on procedures and easily share this throughout the organisation
* A comprehensive performance development scheme (e.g. performance appraisals, mentoring, job shadowing, task rotation and delegation)
* A knowledge retention plan
* Program and process descriptions for the work that you carry out that provide all relevant knowledge for someone new to the project
* An intranet that is regularly updated
* An organised filing / central archiving system used by everyone
* A funding applications archive (or similar) providing easy access to your organisation's previous funding applications (project costings; knowledge of what individual funding bodies look for and will/will not fund; precedents from previous pitches; history of funding relationships)
* Training, manuals, troubleshooting guides and customisation notes for specialist software used by your organisation
 
 
And finally..
 
When considering knowledge management (acquisition, management, transfer and retention), do any of the factors below affect your organisation's focus on it?

Please mark on a scale of 0-5 where 0 = this factor has no effect on my organisation's focus and 5 = this factor affects my organisation's focus on knowledge management to a very significant extent.
Although we think it is important, so many other things are a priority that we never get around to focusing on it
-
We don't have the funds to design and implement proper processes
-
Our physical resources limit our ability to implement proper processes
-
Project funding rarely includes a budget for the management and retention of knowledge developed during the project
-
We have a specific person assigned to focus on this
-
We used to focus more on knowledge management but as funds and resources have decreased, our focus has also decreased
-
Knowledge management isn't that important for what we do
-
 
 
 
Does anything else affect / influence your organisation's approach to knowledge management?
   
 
If your organisation lost what it viewed as critical knowledge, how serious do you think the impact would be on:

(0 = no impact at all 5 = extremely serious impact)
Overall operations
-
Staff and volunteers
-
External collaborations
-
Finances
-
Future plans
-
 
 
 
As I receive completed surveys I am hoping to contact a smaller group of VLAS organisations to discuss knowledge management in more detail (probably by telephone). If any of the list below apply to you, I would be grateful for your email address in case I want to ask you some additional questions.

Please note that providing your email address does not guarantee that I will contact you; it does not obligate you to respond to any future contact from me; and your email address will not be tied to your survey responses (which will remain anonymous): I will store email addresses separately and remove this field from the overall results database.
 
I know of one or more VLAS organisation(s) that lost knowledge and suffered serious impact
 
I know of one or more VLAS organisation(s) that lost knowledge and suffered little to no impact
 
My VLAS organisation has been through downsizing / merging / closure and re-opening and has had to deal with knowledge management issues around this
 
My VLAS organisation / my local area is facing a serious risk of knowledge loss at this time
 
My local area has experienced a serious knowledge loss in the last 18 months
 
I may be happy to answer some additional questions
 
I won't be able to answer additional questions but would be interested to receive an update on your research when it is completed

 
Please provide your first name (last name is optional) and email address if you are happy to be contacted. This information will be separated from your other survey responses.
First Name : 
Last name (optional) : 
Email Address :