National accreditation for East Renfrewshire Council’s Money Advice and Rights Team

The National Standards Accreditation is a Scottish Government initiative for advice providers to ensure that the information provided meets set criteria.

East Renfrewshire’s MART team has achieved ‘Type III’, the highest level an organisation can gain.

The accreditation was secured following two national audits.

The first was a peer to peer review of randomly selected cases to ensure that the advice and information shared was correct.

The second was an audit carried out by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) to ensure that the team met the required standards.

These cover whether the information being provided is accurate, if the service is appropriately publicised and how staff are trained and developed.

This comes on the back of the team clinching the Team of the Year award at the 2019 We Are East Ren Awards.

Councillor Danny Devlin, Housing and Maintenance Services Convener, said: “I am delighted that MART has been recognised nationally with this accreditation. The advice and support they offer their customers on everything from Universal Credit to how to reduce household bills is vitally important.

“They annually save East Renfrewshire residents millions of pounds by reducing debts, supporting budgeting and claiming and appealing benefits, so if you have something you think they could help with, get in touch with team.”

MART can be contacted confidentially by emailing [email protected] or calling 0141 577 8420.