Independent advocacy takes off

In Scotland, as elsewhere, advocacy projects usually emerged from organisations that gave a voice to people for whom they were already providing other services. ENABLE Scotland (formerly the Scottish Society for the Mentally Handicapped), Alzheimer Scotland – Action on Dementia, the Scottish Association for Mental Health and several smaller regional associations each gave birth to advocacy initiatives, working mainly with users of their broader range of services.

This pattern has been repeated in other parts of the United Kingdom and beyond. In the Republic of Ireland, for example, where advocacy is still in its infancy, the lead is being taken by long-established social care organisations such as the Brothers of Charity and Cheshire (Ireland).

Even where new advocacy agencies were set up, as they were under the Scottish Mental Health Act of 2003, with the sole purpose of providing advocacy services, it was likely that they would need a bit of time to find their feet and become fully independent. In some cases such agencies were ‘hosted’ by existing voluntary organisations, which helped them to set up a management structure, accounting and payroll services, banking facilities and insurance cover, and to gain charitable status. The agency that has provided much of the material for this book followed this path. It was at first managed by a national voluntary agency until it could find its own feet as a not-for-profit company with its own manager and board of directors. Other Scottish agencies will have developed in different ways, but all will have been shaped by broadly similar political and legislative influences peculiar to Scotland over the last decade.

Since the late 1990s, the UK government and, following the devolution of powers, the Scottish Executive have sent out guidance to local councils and the NHS on the commissioning and development of advocacy services. In 2000 this guidance was further strengthened when the Scottish Health Minister, Malcolm Chisholm, required local councils and health boards to jointly produce a ‘three year plan’ for the development of independent advocacy services in their areas. This raised the profile of advocacy and pushed it up the agenda of the public services that would have to commission and pay for it.