News

Consumer Action seeks to be a reflective, impact-driven organisation that can adjust and refine our services to meet legal need. We have done significant work to conduct evaluations of our existing services and have taken steps to progress recommendations.

Today we are publishing a new report entitled Addressing and Preventing Legal Need Relating to Credit, Debt and Consumer Law Issues.

This legal needs analysis looks at the impact of our entire service model on addressing legal need through the alignment of client-facing services, engagement and training, policy and advocacy work.

The report includes a number of key findings and recommendations.

The key findings include:

• Consumer Action’s Consumer Advice Service is accessed by people in areas of high disadvantage in outer metropolitan regions of Melbourne, but it is not accessed by people in regional areas of high disadvantage at the rate we would expect
• Additional partnerships, particularly with local community legal centres and local financial counsellors, may assist with improved access to CALC services and resources in areas where reach is currently limited
• Our existing partnerships with Financial Counsellors, Aboriginal Legal Services and generalist Community Legal Centres are well targeted and high impact
• Casework-informed policy and advocacy work has significant impact in addressing existing legal need and preventing new legal problems from arising.

Read the full report (PDF) and recommendations.