Our quality mark
AC holds the Advice Quality Standard
The Advice Quality Standard is an established quality mark for advice organisations in England and Wales. It gives clients, partners and funders assurance that advice services are assessed against recognised standards.
For Accommodation Concern, holding AQS reflects the way we want advice to feel in practice: respectful, accurate, well-recorded, properly checked and focused on the person in front of us.
It also supports our wider commitment to FCA-regulated debt advice, safe housing advice, good casework and continuous improvement.
Accommodation Concern holds the Advice Quality Standard for its advice services.
What it means
Quality-marked advice should be more than a helpful conversation
- Clear accessPeople should know how to get help, what to expect and how their information will be used.
- Competent adviceAdvice should be given by trained staff working within their competence, with supervision and escalation where needed.
- Good recordsAdvice work should be recorded clearly so actions, evidence, decisions and outcomes can be checked.
- Client carePeople should be treated with dignity, respect and confidentiality, especially when they are under pressure.
- Quality checkingCasework should be reviewed so mistakes are spotted, learning is shared and standards are maintained.
- ImprovementA quality mark is not a finish line. It supports ongoing learning, accountability and better outcomes.
Why it matters
People need advice they can trust
Housing, debt, benefits and employment worries can quickly affect someone’s home, income, mental health and safety. Poor advice can make a difficult situation worse. Quality-marked advice helps reduce that risk.
AQS gives a structured way to check that our advice service has the right systems behind it: policies, supervision, case recording, referral routes, confidentiality, complaints processes and quality assurance.
For partners and funders, it provides reassurance that referrals are going into a service with recognised standards. For clients, it means the advice should be practical, careful and accountable.
Advice ecosystem
Membership, systems and standards
We use AdvicePro case management and are part of the AdviceUK network. Together with AQS, this helps us keep advice work structured, auditable and connected to wider good practice in the independent advice sector.
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