Councils, LGAs and Refernet
We know good Advice pays. Intervention early on in the issues people have, reduces the cost of helping them in the long term, and referring effectiviely, is at the heart of it. Well managed, it can save councils and LGAs serious money.

UK based Refernet is the best and possibly only ‘out-of-the-box’ dedicated referral system to provide an umbrella of Advice data for whole cities, regions or towns for all referral activity and outcomes. This not only helps more people by smoothing out the referral process, but just as important, it lifts the lid of what is happening, who is helping, and by how much. With this top level data at their fingertips, it can give Senior managers and Directors the big picture on how advice is being delivered to the community.  It’s already proven to do this.

Solving a problem
There is a particular problem to solve when referring customers to the various advice agencies, businesses, and other services around LGAs in their regions. It boils down to the variety and large numbers of different organisations they need to work with, all of whom use different systems, including online diaries, case management, and unique methods of working. Historically the only common platforms for referring between all these disparate organisations, was phone and email – but that provided little in the way of tracking and accountability for what happens to the customer and their referral journey.

Refernet has over many years successfully proven it is possible to bring a multi-partner referral solution into the LGA sector. By providing a secure, common referral platform, centred around the digital transfer and tracking of each referral, this also helps reduce stress for customers, brings accountability, and auditable results across a wide range of types of help.

This in turn helps evidence the good work being done –  and secures existing (and future funding) for everyone involved in the advice network.

Refernet in Westminster

Invitations and your team
Refernet works best when there is an advocate in the referral team – someone who takes on the role of inviting the agencies and organisations in the LGA’s region, to take part. All our successful Refernet networks have someone in this role. This is a continuous role, and in our opinion is as important as the system itself. Without the support and promotion of the referral service hub, agencies can drift away – usually because of staff churn / staff turnover.

We can’t emphasise this enough, and our experience shows… any online referral network will only be successful with the ongoing support and promotion of a dedicated referral team.

Typically a Refernet ‘System Advocate’ will provide:

• Invitations: Prospective partners need to be invited in, explaining its simplicity and the fact that all agencies can refer to each other, and all on an equal basis. (each agency system has exactly the same functionality as another).

• Training: The system is known for ease of use, but getting started does sometimes need Advocate support. There will be a primary user for each Agency who should take on this role, but it may take a while to get their team thinking ‘Refernet’ every time they want to refer to you, or to another agency in the network.

• Reminders: The system automatically sends email reminders if referrals have been sent to the receiving agency – again this helps encourage interaction with the system.

Outcomes
At the end of the day, Refernet users usually want to see outcomes across a network of Agencies and define the sets of outcomes within the system to report on. It can be very simple, and it needs to be. We positively encourage clients to reduce the fields in their referral forms (which are editable), to a minimum.

Any system is more likely to be used when those (busy) advice partners accessing it have the least to do. The referral form can be expanded in time if needed, once the user base is familiar with what to do. Better to start with a light touch, than ask too much of the network early on.

Remember that this is just about a referral, not a ‘case’. All the external agencies, departments, charities and others in a typical Council network already have their own case management tools.