Independent advice and advocacy

What is the difference between information, advice and advocacy?

Three words that arrive glued together and mean different things. Information is what a document can give: what the law says, where it says it, and when the version you are reading was updated. Advice takes a situation and applies the rules to it, which is a service with a boundary around it and a person qualified to draw it. Advocacy is a third thing again: help to take part in a decision, and under the Care Act 2014 something a council is required to arrange in defined circumstances rather than something to be requested as a favour. Knowing which of the three you are asking for is most of the battle, because each of them is refused politely in the language of the others.

When does the council have to arrange an advocate?

Where an adult would otherwise have substantial difficulty taking part. Section 67 is titled Involvement in assessments, plans etc., and it puts independent advocacy inside the process at the points where a decision is being written down: the assessment and the plan. The timing is the whole of the practical point. An advocate who arrives before the assessment starts helps to shape the record. One who arrives afterwards helps to argue with it, which is harder and slower.

Care Act 2014, section 67, Involvement in assessments, plans etc. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.

One question asked early settles it: which advocacy arrangement the council uses, and when will it be in place. your rights under the law sets out where section 67 sits among the others, and why it is a duty rather than a courtesy.

What does an advocate do?

Helps the adult to say what they want, and carries that into the room where the decision is made. That is the shape of the role, and it is worth holding onto, because an advocate is a different figure from everybody else at the table. The advocate's brief comes from the adult. The briefs on the other side come from the organisations those people work for, and a meeting where one brief differs from all the others is a meeting where something can be said that would otherwise go unsaid. Independence, in this context, describes where the brief comes from.

Where does capacity change the picture?

In the statute that governs it. Where capacity is the question, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 applies, and the Code of Practice that accompanies it, first published on 22 July 2013 and last updated on 14 October 2020, is the document to read. The abbreviation IMCA appears in letters on that side of the line, and it belongs to that Act rather than to the Care Act 2014. The two kinds of advocacy are easy to confuse in a letter and hard to confuse in person, which is one more reason to ask which of them is being arranged. handling the money sets out where capacity bites on direct payments.

Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice, first published 22 July 2013, last updated 14 October 2020, GOV.UK, read on 3 September 2026.

Where does advice come from that has nothing to sell?

From organisations whose work is the advice itself, and the way to tell is to ask what the organisation gains from the answer. Advice that arrives attached to a particular kind of support, or to a particular way of arranging it, has a shape worth noticing before it is followed. A council can also be asked what independent advice exists in its area, and that question is a fair one to put in writing, because the answer is a list that can be checked rather than a recommendation that has to be trusted.

What if the decision has already gone the wrong way?

Start with the council's own procedure, and treat it as a procedure rather than as a correspondence. Ask for a copy of the complaints procedure, put the complaint in writing with the dates, and keep the letters: a complaint that arrives with dates attached is one that can be answered rather than one that has to be reconstructed. Where the question is about a plan rather than about a complaint, the review is the route, and changing your support describes it. What lies past a council's own procedure is a reading this handbook has not completed and dated, and until that reading is done, the honest answer stops at the procedure.

How do you get ready for the meeting that decides?

By writing the short version first. The thing that matters most, in three sentences, is harder to lose in a long meeting than the thing that matters most in your head, and it survives the meeting as a document. taking part locally is where that exercise earns the most, because a week is harder to describe than a need. Step 6 and step 14 of the route map are the two this page has been describing: the advocate who helps you take part, and the procedure for when the outcome is wrong.

Sources read for this page

• Care Act 2014, revised text on legislation.gov.uk, version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026
• Mental Capacity Act 2005, revised text on legislation.gov.uk
• Care and support statutory guidance, Department of Health and Social Care, updated 22 July 2025

Each source above was opened on 3 September 2026. Where a page here prints a section number or a figure, the source line beside it names the version that number was read from.