Information, advice and guidance

People need easy access to high quality information, advice and guidance and whenever possible and appropriate, they need to be able to self-serve or their carers and families need to be able to do so on their behalf. This approach allows people to maintain control and to exercise choice at whatever point they are at in their lives. Further, it helps the Council to use its resources more effectively.

Building on this, it is essential that when people contact ASC, they are given a positive response and support to help resolve the issues they face but by emphasising what people can do for themselves, what support is available from other organisations and what support is available in the community. The aim is to ensure that people receive care and support that is appropriate and that enables independence rather than fostering dependency.

In order to deliver this element of the strategy, ASC will continue to promote its services and how people can contact them. We will work with citizens and partners to continue to improve our online information, advice and guidance. The first point of contact can be through our website or through our contact centre, where we have specialist customer service advisors who are trained to deal with requests quickly and who will be helpful, respectful and understanding.

A new jointly commissioned Carers Hub was implemented in April 2023, to improve access to information, advice, guidance and support for informal carers. We will continue to work with carers and partners to make it easier for carers to access services and improve outcomes.

Page last updated: 3 July 2024