Unit 1: Information, Advice or Guidance – Principles and Practice

Record keeping, monitoring and evaluation

Careful record keeping is essential to demonstrate to managers and funders that your work is effective and client-centred.  This practice also assists in evaluation of how the service can be improved.  It is important that the record keeping is in line with GDPR and the Data Protection Act.  Data protection is about ensuring people can trust you to use their data fairly and responsibly.

If you collect information about individuals for any reason other than your own personal, family or household purposes, you need to comply.

The UK data protection regime is set out in the DPA 2018, along with the UK GDPR. It takes a flexible, risk-based approach which puts the onus on you to think about and justify how and why you use data.

The ICO regulates data protection in the UK. They offer advice and guidance, promote good practice, carry out audits, consider complaints, monitor compliance and take enforcement action where appropriate.

IAG advisors must consider what information is necessary to keep, for what purpose, how it will be used, how it will be stored and how long for. 

Monitoring is the collection of statistical data, through questionnaires or surveys, to measure performance and improvement. Monitoring and evaluation data collected from clients can help measure performance and improvement in relation to equality and diversity. Monitoring is a way of measuring change and identifying issues that affect staff teams and service users. By monitoring, you can manage work more effectively, and improve its processes to tackle problems. Here are two examples of what effective monitoring can be used for:

Example 1 – Identify bullying An employee opinion survey is carried out and the results of are used to help to prevent and tackle issues like bullying. Responses to questions help to highlight if particular groups or service areas are experiencing particular issues. Acting on the monitoring results helps to ensure workplaces are safe and welcoming for everyone.

Example 2 – LGBTQ inclusivity In an client survey questions are asked to find out about pronouns and how the client was greeted when accessing services for IAG . Acting on the monitoring results could help to identify training needs for advisors. Stonewall have a number of guides to help explain monitoring to people who work for organisations like councils and to service users. The guides explain the case for why we monitor across all equality strands, including disability, gender or gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and belief and age.