Skills for justice - developing skills for safer communities

Legal Advice NOS Implementation in Northern Ireland Research Project

Our Northern Ireland team are undertaking a project which will develop an integrated training strategy for the legal advice sector in Northern Ireland.

This project, which has been funded by the Department of Employment and Learning (DEL), will assist with the implementation of National Occupational Standards (NOS) for legal advice. Through representation on our Project Steering Group, we are working in partnership with The Voluntary and Community Unit, Department of Social Development, the Advice Services Alliance and The Law Society of Northern Ireland.

Over the summer, we conducted research to help support the implementation of the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for the legal advice sector in Northern Ireland. We would like to thank everyone who participated in the research.

We have adopted the key recommendations that are contained within the research report and have created an Action Plan. We are seeking views from across the legal advice sector on the Action Plan. If you would like to take part, please read the consultation guidance document.




Please email your comments to Nicola Kerr|, project manager by 4 January 2010.

Legal Advice NOS Toolkit

We have been working closely with NOS4Advice| to create a suite of NOS for people working in the Legal Advice sector. These are now approved and available within the NOS finder|.

Together we have also developed an online toolkit| to help people in the legal Advice sector implement and use the NOS.


How NOS are being used in the Legal Advice Sector

We have completed a project to provide information, support and practical guidance to Legal Advice agencies to enable them to implement the new NOS for Legal Advice across a range of HR processes, and to make to best use of the new Legal Advice Services NOS Toolkit publication.

This assistance was offered to a wide range of agencies and companies across England that provide legal advice to the public, including solicitors, not for profit organisations and specialist agencies advising people of immigration or benefits/welfare issues and local authority staff.

As a result a report and a set of case studies have been produced to give examples of how the toolkit and the NOS have been used in practice. Download the report below.



You may also want to view details on the 3 NVQs in Legal Advice| that have been developed.