Advice Service Agreement

Our role is to help you understand your options. This includes being clear about the strengths, risks and practical realities of your case.

We will explain what you can do, what might happen next and any risks you may need to consider.

We may use our experience to help you think things through. We will not pressure you to choose a particular option.

Your case remains yours and we will support you to make your own decisions.

We keep your case records securely. Electronic records are stored on a secure case management system for up to 7 years from your last contact with us.

If we receive paper documents, we store them securely, upload them to our system as soon as possible, and then destroy the paper copies.

We will not share your personal information or case details outside the service unless:

• You give us permission
• We believe there is a serious risk of harm to you or someone else
• The law requires us to share the information

Where possible, we will talk to you before sharing information.

If we cannot speak to you first, we will follow safeguarding and data protection procedures.

If a data breach happens, we will tell you what happened, what information was affected and what we have done in response.

We are inclusive

The Advice Service is open to all students. We want every student to feel safe, respected and able to use the service.

We ask all students to respect the privacy of others who may also be using the service.

We are accessible

If you need adjustments to use our service, please tell us so that we can support you.

We will listen to what you need and record agreed adjustments on your case file. This means staff can be aware of your needs before they support you.

Sometimes we may ask for evidence, such as a needs assessment or guidance from a qualified professional. This helps us understand what adjustments are reasonable.

Our staff are not disability assessors, so we may need professional guidance in some cases.

• The Advice Service is often very busy. We may not be able to support you fully if you contact us at short notice.
• You remain responsible for meeting deadlines set by University procedures or agreed with your adviser.
• Please contact us as early as possible and allow time for us to respond.
• We assess each case and allocate resources based on the needs of all students.
• We may begin with self-help materials, written guidance or initial advice before providing more detailed support where needed.
• Please engage with each stage of support and make reasonable use of any self-help information provided.

Send us information when we ask for it

Please send us documents linked to your case as early as possible. This may include emails, letters, forms, evidence, meeting invitations, University decisions or deadline dates.

We need this information to understand your case and give you accurate advice.

Stay in contact with us

Please respond to our messages and keep us updated.

We may send you guidance to read or steps to complete yourself. Please do your best to follow this guidance.

If we do not hear from you, we may close your case. We may reopen it when you get back in touch.

If a case is closed because of non-engagement on two separate occasions, and the student disengages again after re-engaging, the Advice Service may withdraw or limit access to the service.

Be honest with us

We rely on the information you give us. Missing or delayed information may affect the accuracy or speed of our advice.

Please tell us if you are also getting advice from another organisation, solicitor or legal adviser about the same issue.

In some cases, we may not be able to support you at the same time as another adviser. This helps avoid mixed messages or conflicting advice.

If a student deliberately misleads us or withholds important information, we may limit or stop our support.

Treat staff and other students with respect

We expect students using the service to treat our staff and other students with respect.

We may stop supporting students who behave in an abusive, threatening or intimidating way towards staff.

We also ask students to use the service reasonably. This means avoiding:

• Excessive contact
• Repeated requests for updates before we have had time to respond
• Requests for work outside our role, capacity or expertise
• Attempts to bypass service processes

The Advice Service provides academic advice related to the University of Lancashire.

At our discretion, we may provide additional support with Compelling Personal Reasons claims to Student Finance England.

We also remain a hate crime reporting centre.

• The service is funded to support University of Lancashire students and members of the Students' Union.
• We cannot advise parents, guardians, family members or friends unless the student has given express written authority.
• We cannot advise a student's legal representative or supplement advice provided by a third party.

• We are not an emergency service.
• We cannot provide counselling or mental health treatment.
• We will not advise beyond our scope of competence.
• Where we cannot advise on an issue, we may refer you to a service listed on our Other sources of support page.

Our Advice Service provides free, independent and confidential advice to students at the University of Lancashire.

Demand for advice changes throughout the year. Capacity may also be reduced because of staff leave, training, University closure days or a high number of student cases.

We will be clear about how busy the service is, how quickly we expect to respond, and whether any parts of the service are temporarily reduced or paused.

Green

We are responding to advice enquiries within our usual service standard of 5 working days.

Amber

We are receiving more cases than usual. It may take longer than 5 working days to respond. We will continue to prioritise urgent cases.

Red

We are receiving a significantly high number of cases. Response times are likely to be longer and urgent cases will be prioritised.

Sometimes we may need to reduce or pause parts of the service for a short time.

This may happen because of high demand, staff absence, University closure periods, training or planned service development work.

If this happens, we will explain:

• Which parts of the service are affected
• Why the change is happening
• How long we expect it to last
• Where else support may be available

Temporary changes could include:

• Longer response times
• Prioritising high-risk or time-sensitive cases
• Pausing new advice enquiries for a short period
• Providing written advice only for lower-level issues

We will notify relevant University services of any pauses or severe delays.

We will update the main Advice page when there are temporary changes to the service.