The evaluation report summarizes the findings of an evaluation of St. Mungo's Peer Advice Link (PAL) service. Key findings include: 1) Clients who recently moved into their tenancy were more aware of PAL and what it does compared to longer-term clients. 2) The longer clients are in PAL-supported housing, the more they interact with community groups/relatives and less with support workers. 3) Most clients felt PAL helped them in at least one area like reducing isolation, improving access to services, or increasing meaningful occupation.

1. St. Mungo’s Peer Advice Link (PAL) service
An evaluation report for St. Mungo’s
Iain McDiarmid
October 2013

2. 2
Table of contents
Contents page
1.0 Executive summary ...................................................................................................... 3
2.0 Introduction................................................................................................................... 4
3.0 Methodology.................................................................................................................. 5
3.1 Evaluation purpose and questions .................................................................................. 5
3.2 Methods.......................................................................................................................... 5
3.3 Limitations....................................................................................................................... 5
4.0 Findings; Objectives..................................................................................................... 6
4.1 Objective A; to provide practical support to clients with the initial transition into a new
tenancy and identifying needs and plans............................................................................... 6
4.2 Objective B; to provide support and encouragement to clients in the initial stages of their
tenancy ................................................................................................................................. 6
4.3 Objective C; to provide clients with an ongoing safety net of support for issues which
arise later.............................................................................................................................. 7
5.0 Findings; Aims .............................................................................................................. 8
5.1 Aim 1; to reduce clients’ isolation .................................................................................... 8
5.2 Aim 2; to improve clients’ access to the services they need ............................................ 9
5.2.1 Improved access to support services for clients ........................................................... 9
5.2.2 Increase tenancy sustainment rates for clients........................................................... 10
5.3.1 Increase meaningful occupation for clients................................................................. 11
5.3.2 Increase Employment, training and education (ETE) access for clients...................... 11
5.4 Aim 4; to support clients in optimising income and reducing debt.................................. 13
5.5 Overall client satisfaction............................................................................................... 14
5.6 Outcomes for volunteers ............................................................................................... 16
6 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 17
7 Recommendations......................................................................................................... 19
Appendices;
Appendix 1; evaluation framework
Appendix 2; St. Mungo’s client needs survey summary
Appendix 3; evaluation survey
Appendix 4; survey responses
Appendix 5; interview questions
Appendix 6; outcomes star
Appendix 7; interview responses
Acknowledgments; Daniel Dumoulin, Lucie Brochhausen, Jonathan Scarth, Nicholas Ketley, Justine
Tabi, David White, Paul Gregory, Luwombo Mumvadi, Beata Roslon, Jessica Lath, Humaira Shah, Fred
Challis, Donna Watson, Pauline O’Brien, Michael Chinagorom, and Cynthia Honeygan

3. 3
1.0 Executive summary
St. Mungo’s Peer Advice Link service was set up in 2010. It aims to address the problem of
repeat homelessness by supporting St. Mungo’s clients in sustaining their tenancies,
continuing their recovery in the community and building fulfilling lives. It does this by
providing flexible, needs-based support provided by volunteers who have experience
themselves of using and moving on from support services. These volunteers are supervised,
coached and supported by specialist St. Mungo’s staff.
This evaluation is primarily a benchmarking exercise for the future development of the PAL
service. The evaluation aims to establish a baseline for the outputs of the service. The
evaluation also aims to establish whether clients feel PAL is helping them in four main areas;
combating isolation, accessing services, meaningful occupation and financial inclusion.
The data for the evaluation was collected in five main ways. Firstly the outputs were
measured by interrogating PAL records. It had been hoped PAL would be using St. Mungo’s
OPAL client database which would have allowed much more detailed and more interrogable
data, but this was unfortunately delayed. It will however be available to support future
evaluations. Clients were consulted about outcomes by postal survey and over the phone; a
random selection of those clients were invited for a more in-depth interview and to complete
an ‘outcomes star’ (a St. Mungo’s-designed soft outcomes measuring tool). Finally our
volunteers were asked to complete a survey on their experience with PAL.
Key findings
 Clients who moved into their tenancy more recently were more aware of the PAL
service and what it does, reflecting PAL having become a more established service
across St. Mungo’s.
 The longer clients are in a PAL supported tenancy the more often they interact with
community groups and their relatives, and the less often they interact with support
workers
 Whilst 68.5% of survey respondents are thinking about work and learning, only 25%
are currently in work or learning
 Most survey respondents (79.6%) felt that PAL has helped them in at least one area
asked about in our survey, and 48% felt they’d been helped in multiple areas
 83.3% of PAL volunteers were more confident about both obtaining work and working
than when they began volunteering with PAL, and 11 of the 17 volunteers who left
PAL in 2012/13 did so into paid employment
Key recommendations
 PAL switching to using St. Mungo’s OPAL client database will allow far more
effective oversight and evaluation of the service
 The gap between the number of clients thinking about work and learning and that
currently in work or learning means PAL should in the future build on links with
services in this area; both external partners and internally with St. Mungo’s
 Clients’ responses around benefit and debt support underline the importance of PAL
working closely with St. Mungo’s new financial inclusion worker.

4. 4
2.0 Introduction
This is an evaluation of St. Mungo’s Peer Advice Link (PAL) service. It aims to look at the
outcomes PAL has achieved so far with its clients, consult its clients and volunteers around
successes and learning points, and provide a benchmark for future evaluation and service
development. The evaluation was conducted in the summer of 2013.
St. Mungo’s works with a broad spectrum of people, many of whom face multiple
disadvantages. This can include problems with mental health, substance use and complex
needs as well as histories of complex trauma.
St. Mungo’s Peer Advice Link (PAL) was set up in 2010 to tackle the high instance of repeat
homelessness within our client group. It aims to support St. Mungo’s clients in ‘sustaining
their tenancies, continuing their recovery in the community and building fulfilling lives’ after
moving on from St. Mungo’s accommodation. It is targeted at two main points in someone’s
transition to independent living, identified both by St. Mungo’s internally and by independent
studies such as the ‘for-home’ study1
as key to achieving this.
Firstly PAL is targeted at supporting people with the initial transition from supported housing
to independent living. This involves help with practical issues such as benefits and utilities,
help with building support networks in the community, and in helping people to get active
and set new goals. By helping people with this initial transition PAL aims to allow them to
move on with confidence into this new stage in their recovery.
Secondly PAL aims to provide people with a safety net for problems as they crop up later in
their tenancies. This is built on recognition that the issues people present with on becoming
homeless again, for example mental health and substance misuse, are generally a result of
a problem or problems in their life with which they feel unable to cope.
Most of the time these problems start out small, but often people don’t seek help at this
point. PAL aims to help our clients prevent these problems snowballing by providing a
freephone helpline and flexible needs-based support. This means we work with someone as
they feel they need it, rather than for a set period of time.
PAL is staffed by volunteers with experience of using and moving on from support services
themselves, supported and coached by specialist St. Mungo’s staff.
This evaluation will look first at the objectives we have set for PAL around the kind of
activities we aim to undertake to support our clients in sustaining their tenancies, continuing
their recovery in the community and building fulfilling lives. We will then look at the specific
aims of the service and those outcomes we want to achieve for our clients and which we
believe are key to our clients ‘sustaining their tenancies, continuing their recovery in the
community and building fulfilling lives’. These are; financial inclusion, isolation, access to
services and meaningful occupation. Finally we will briefly examine any outcomes for our
volunteers. We will then look at any conclusions or recommendations we can draw from the
evaluation.
1
’the for-home study, moves to independent living’ Crane, Warnes, Coward 2011

5. 5
3.0 Methodology
3.1 Evaluation purpose and questions
The evaluation aims to look at the outcomes PAL has achieved so far with its clients, consult
its clients and volunteers around successes and learning points, and provide a benchmark
for future evaluation and service development. The evaluation was conducted in the summer
of 2013.
As part of evaluating against our overall aim, the evaluation will look at four specific aims
which we believe are important contributors to the overall aim of supporting people moving
on from St. Mungo’s housing projects in sustaining tenancies, continuing their recovery in
the community and building fulfilling lives. They are;
1) To reduce clients’ isolation
2) To improve clients’ access to the services they need
3) To improve client’s levels of meaningful occupation
4) To support clients in optimising income and reducing debt
We will further examine the services against objectives for activities that contribute to these
aims. Namely;
a) To provide practical support to clients with the initial transition into a new tenancy and
identifying needs and plans
b) To provide support and encouragement to clients in the initial stages of their tenancy
c) To provide clients with an ongoing safety net of support for issues which arise later
3.2 Methods
 Phone survey; we conducted a telephone survey with all of our current clients.
 Postal survey; we sent a postal survey to all clients in our archive from 2012 and 2013
 Interviews; we invited a random selection of survey respondents in for a more in-depth
interview.
 Outcomes star; We also aimed to complete ‘outcome stars’ with these people with the
intention of comparing them to the final star completed in supported housing. The outcomes
star is a soft outcomes measurement tool designed by St. Mungo’s.
 Outputs; we planned to interrogate OPAL, St. Mungo’s client work database, to give us a
variety of output measurements.
3.3 Limitations
 Unfortunately there was a delay in implementation of St. Mungo’s OPAL database for PAL.
This made it more difficult to measure and interrogate outcomes.
 We completed outcomes stars with all of our interviewees. However as we invited such a
broad group, we found many of them had left St. Mungo’s long enough ago that no prior
outcomes star was available
 We found that many clients had difficulty separating their experience with PAL from their
experience in St. Mungo’s accommodation.
 As a single data collection point evaluation we were unable to ascertain the ‘distance
travelled’; this means the progress a client has made from when we started working with
them.

6. 6
4.0 Findings; Objectives
For the purposes of benchmarking we will use the year 2012/13 for measuring PAL outputs.
As covered in the limitations section, this is an area where this report has been limited by the
delay in implementation of our database. This means that we are underestimating numbers
for home and office visits, phone calls, and follow-up actions.
In 2012/13 PAL worked with exactly 300 people. Of these 155 were people newly moving
on from St. Mungo’s, 118 were people returning for further support. 27 were referred by
other organisations.
4.1 Objective A; to provide practical support to clients with the initial transition into a
new tenancy and identifying needs and plans
A1) Initial assessment and action planning session
In 2012/13 PAL completed 182 initial assessment and action planning sessions. These are
where PAL volunteers will meet with a client and discuss their needs and aspirations. They
will then agree a joint action plan where the client agrees to do certain things and PAL
agrees to do certain things for the client.
A2) Follow-up actions & advocacy
From this PAL completed 521 follow-up actions. These comprise a wide range of actions,
from advocacy with utility companies to grant applications for furniture.
4.2 Objective B; to provide support and encouragement to clients in the initial stages
of their tenancy
B1) Number of home visits
In 2012/13 PAL completed 231 home visits.
B2) Number of office visits
In 2012/13 PAL made 224 office visits.
B3) Number of visits giving financial/support network/ETE advice broken down
Due to the database implementation
issues mentioned above we are unable
to break down the above figures.
Consequently we took a random
sample of 30 visits, half office and half
home. It demonstrates that a high
proportion of PAL visits cover housing
and financial issues, and that they
often cover multiple issues.
Table 1; types of advice given
in a random sample of visits
Type of
advice
housing ETE Support
network
financial
Number of
visits
19 7 10 16
Percentage
of visits
63.3 23.3 33.3 53.3

7. 7
4.3 Objective C; to provide clients with an ongoing safety net of support for issues
which arise later
C1) Number of clients returning after ‘archive’
In 2012/13 118 people returned from the PAL ‘archive’ (‘archive’ means people who move
on from PAL support, either because they feel they no longer need it or because they just
drop out of contact). These people returned as they felt they had an issue or issues with
which they wanted PAL’s help.
6 of the 7 people who attended more in-depth interviews felt that they were confident
returning to PAL if they needed support.
C2) Number of calls
In 2012/13 PAL offered telephone support on 720 occasions. As mentioned in limitations this
number is likely to be much lower than the actual figure.
C3) Awareness of helpline amongst former clients
Table 2;
respondents’
awareness of PAL
and of helpline
We found that the more recently a client had moved into their property, the more likely they
were both to know how to get hold of the PAL team and to have a better understanding of
what we do. This reflects that PAL is increasingly established service, and that knowledge of
what we do is more effectively being passed on to clients before they move. PAL has also
looked at ways of increasing awareness amongst clients, attended residents meetings in
hostels and handing out PAL fridge magnets to clients. Causality is obviously difficult to
attribute here however.
58
respondents
Know how to get
hold of us?
Know what we do
(average score where
one is strongly disagree
and 5 is strongly agree)
2009-2011 68.8% 3.53
2012 70.4% 4
2013 86.7% 4.13

8. 8
5.0 Findings; Aims
5.1 Aim 1; to reduce clients’ isolation
As part of our phone and postal surveys, we asked people how often they spoke to certain
groups. Part of St. Mungo’s hopes for our clients’ recovery is that over time they will move
away from a reliance on support services, and increasingly interact with their own families
and in their community.
Table 3; averaged
survey responses on
a rating scale 1-5
(from ‘never’ (1) to
‘very frequently’(5))
grouped by the year
their tenancy started
As table 1 shows, the longer someone has been in their tenancy with PAL support, the more
they move away from regular interaction with support services and increasingly interact with
relatives and community groups. The ‘friends’ category does not show a continuous
progression. Table 2 shows again that the longer someone has been in their tenancy with
PAL support, the more likely they are to frequently interact with relatives, friends or
community groups.
‘I used to have no friends at all, in the hostel I had no one. Now I’ve met some people
in church and I think I can call them
my friends and speak to them’
Table 4; percentage of respondents
who ‘frequently’ or ‘very frequently’
interact with friends, relatives or
community groups
Of the 7 people who attended more in-depth interviews, 4 felt that PAL had helped in this
area. 1 other was supported by a different St. Mungo’s service, and of the other 2 one said
they’d not discussed it with us and the other said they’d ‘not bothered to get in contact with
PAL since they first came to see me, so no’.
These findings were also borne out by our survey of our volunteers, with 4 of the 5
respondents feeling that they helped PAL clients to become less isolated ‘frequently’
Year
(number of
respondent
s)
relatives Community
groups
Friends Support
workers
2013 (15) 2.6 2 3.3 3.3
2012 (27) 3.2 2.3 3.6 3
2009-2011
(16)
3.7 2.7 3.4 2.5
Year (number of
respondents)
Speak to someone
who isn’t a support
worker
often
2013 (15) 60%
9
2012
27
63%
17
2009-2011 16 81.3%
13

9. 9
5.2 Aim 2; to improve clients’ access to the services they need
As St. Mungo’s clients move into the community, they often struggle to navigate the different
services on offer which can be a barrier to continuing their recovery. PAL aims to help clients
to identify and access the services that they feel they need. As a generic service a large part
of the work of PAL is to help clients to build a support network comprising the specialist
support to meet their needs. Consequently we examine here clients’ access to support
services, and the tenancy sustainment rates to which that contributes.
5.2.1 Improved access to support services for clients
Figure 5; responses to the statement ‘PAL helped me to access the services I need’
As figure 3 shows, most respondents (58.8%) agreed that PAL had helped them to access
the services they need. There was however a significant proportion who disagreed, which
warranted further examination. Having examined their other responses, none of these were
people who did not access any services.
‘When I moved PAL found me my local GP and showed me how to get there. PAL
showed my where a lot of things where around my area’
We also asked respondents to our survey to identify the areas with which they felt they
needed support. There were 146 instances of respondents selecting ‘yes’ to needing support
with one of those areas. Of those 146 instances, on 103 instances that individual was with at
least some regularity accessing services to meet that need.
‘I have been tried in with occupational therapy, they are coming round the make
adjustments to my cooking utensils so I can manage in the kitchen more easily’
All of the 6 PAL volunteers who responded to this question on our survey felt that they had
helped PAL clients access the services they need at least occasionally, and 4 of the 6 felt
they had done this frequently or very frequently

10. 10
5.2.2 Increase tenancy sustainment rates for clients
In the financial year 2012/13, PAL worked with 300 clients, of whom there were only 4 know
tenancy failures. This is however not a complete tenancy sustainment figure because PAL
works with people only if they choose to, so should people choose not to accept support and
their tenancy fail we would not know. Consequently this is not comparable with overall
figures or with figures for organisations that have a mechanism for being made aware of all
tenancy failures.
Of the 58 respondents, 56 were still in their original tenancy and 2 had moved to a new
tenancy.
Case study; Mary, a PAL client.
Mary was living on the top floor of a high-rise council block where the lift was only working
sporadically. Mary has a multiple and complex needs including mobility issues which are
brought on by a progressive brain stem disease. Mary is wheelchair bound and as a result
cannot come back and forth from her flat when the lift is not working. PAL had been to visit
Mary in her home on a number of occasions and the condition of her flat was poor. Mary
was not able to look after herself and a number of different men were staying with her at
various points.
PAL did a number of things to support Mary.
- There was a clear risk of abuse and PAL consequently made a safeguarding referral.
- We supported her to get in contact with the borough Homes and request a transfer
to a level access flat. This transfer was granted and Mary was offered a flat.
- When Mary was offered a flat PAL supported Mary to apply for dual housing benefit
so she would not be stuck with a short fall.
- When Mary was offered her level access flat PAL got in touch with her borough to
request assistance with her move, but they were unable to help. PAL was able to
secure funding for the move internally.
- The move involved three volunteers, the van driver and a handy man. Mary could
not ride in the van because she is a wheelchair user and the van driver was not
insured to take her so one of our volunteers had to ride with in the van. For risk
management purposes our volunteers do not lone work so two of the other
volunteers accompanied Mary to her new property via public transport. We
managed to successfully move Mary.
- PAL also supported Mary to be linked in with both the borough Social services for
her care needs and the borough Occupational Therapy for her mobility needs.

11. 11
5.3 Aim 3; to improve client’s levels of meaningful occupation
Part of the overall aim of the PAL service is to help its clients to build fulfilling lives. This fits
in more broadly with St. Mungo’s aim that everyone has something meaningful to do. For
some people this can include employment, training and education (ETE). However that is not
the whole picture, and for some of our clients this is a more long term goal. Consequently
here we look at not just ETE access for our clients but also how they feel about accessing
ETE in the future, as well as the extent to which clients participate in hobbies, sports and
social activities.
5.3.1 Increase meaningful occupation for clients
Table 6; the
percentage of survey
respondents’
reported access to
hobbies, sports and
social activities.
Table 4 shows us that 86.8% of our clients participate in at least one of these activities with
at least some regularity. It also shows that more than half of our clients do so frequently.
Although using a slightly different method, St. Mungo’s client needs survey found that 58%
of St. Mungo’s residential clients were meaningfully occupied.
Interestingly clients who have not felt the need to be visited by PAL are more likely (100%)
to participate in one of the activities they were asked about in the survey occasionally, whilst
those who have engaged with the service are slightly more likely (52.5%) to participate
frequently. The small sample size makes it difficult to draw conclusions from this but it is
worth examining further in future evaluations.
‘PAL got me into knitting which I still enjoy’
All 5 of the PAL volunteers who responded to this question on our survey felt they helped
PAL clients to improve their levels of meaningful occupation at least occasionally.
5.3.2 Increase Employment, training and education (ETE) access for clients
Number
of times
visited
by PAL
How many do
one activity at
least rarely?
How many do
one activity at
least
occasionally?
How many do
one activity at
least
frequently?
Overall
53
86.8%
46
75.5%
40
52.8%
28
0 visits
7
100%
7
100%
7
42.9%
3
1-9
visits
40
85%
34
75%
30
52.5%
21
10+
visits
6
83.3%
5
50%
3
50%
3

12. 12
Figure 7; percentage of survey responses around ETE. ‘thinking’ about work and
learning being a response of ‘unsure’ or higher on the survey’s rating scale of
responses to the questions ‘I am ready for work’ and ‘I am ready for learning’.
Figure 5 show us firstly that just over 14% of our clients are working. This compares with
6% of St. Mungo’s residential clients (appendix 1). What is noticeable is that the highest
proportion of people who are in work and learning are those who did not feel they needed to
be visited by PAL. It is also noticeable that the highest need cohort, those who needed 10 or
more visits from PAL, are the least likely to be in work or learning.
What is most noticeable however is the huge gap across all cohorts who responded to the
survey between the number of people who are considering work and learning and those who
are in fact in work and learning. This is an interesting baseline for future evaluations but also
an issue that needs some consideration as to how PAL as a service can help our clients to
bridge that gap.
PAL client Hudai. With the PAL support Hudai started his own picture-framing shop;
‘Gamze’, in Dalston. He would like to point out that it is very reasonably priced!

13. 13
5.4 Aim 4; to support clients in optimising income and reducing debt
A challenge PAL clients face in sustaining their tenancy and continuing their recovery in the
community is in managing their money. Most of our clients are on low incomes and given
that only 14% are in work the vast majority are receiving state benefits.
This is however the area with which our survey respondents least felt that they had been
supported by PAL (see figure 6). Indeed most respondents to our survey disagreed with
statement ‘PAL helped me manage my money’. Given the importance we place on
supporting clients with financial difficulties, this is a concerning finding and bears further
examination.
Figure 8; survey respondents’ responses to the quoted statement.
Figure 9; respondents with figure 10; respondents with
debt issues benefits issues
In order to examine this further we separated out the cohorts of people who identified that
they needed support with financial issues. These were the people who elsewhere on the
survey identified that they needed help with debts and those that identified that they needed
help with benefits. We then looked at the responses of those two groups to the statement
‘PAL helped me manage my money’.

14. 14
Figure 7 shows the responses of the 12 of our 58 survey respondents who identified that
they needed help with debts to the statement ‘PAL helped me manage my money’. 6 of
these agreed or strongly agreed, and there were only 2 who disagreed. So the majority of
those with this need felt that PAL was helping them.
‘PAL got my water bill sorted. I had a big dept on their, PAL negaciated monthly
payments to make it affordable. When I tried to contact the water company I could not
get through to speak to anyone, PAL helped with this’
Figure 8 shows the responses of the 17 of our 58 survey respondents who identified that
they needed help with benefits to the statement ‘PAL helped me manage my money’. 7 of
them disagreed or strongly disagreed, and only 5 agreed or strongly agreed.
‘My housing benefit was stopped because (London Borough) said I had not told them
that I have given birth. PAL helped me get my housing benefit back up and running’
Consequently we wished to examine whether these people were accessing other services
for benefits advice. Of the 14 people in this cohort who answered the survey question about
benefits services. 10 were accessing services for benefits support at least occasionally, of
whom 2 were accessing them frequently and 4 very frequently. Of the remaining 4 people
not accessing other services for benefits advice, 2 agreed that PAL had helped them to
manage their money. So although many respondents with benefits issues felt that it wasn’t
PAL who was helping them manage their money, this was because they were in fact getting
help with them elsewhere.
5.5 Overall client satisfaction
We only directly asked the 7 clients who came in for an interview about satisfaction. Of those
3 were very satisfied, 2 were satisfied and 1 was fairly satisfied. One person was very
dissatisfied; they however also identified that they didn’t work with PAL at all because they
had support from another specialist team within St. Mungo’s.
We did however ask all survey respondents to identify the areas they agreed PAL had
helped them with; the statements were PAL helped me ‘access the services I need’,
‘manage my money’, and ‘maintain my tenancy’.
How many areas
did PAL help with?
0 1 2 3
How many people
from 54
respondents?
11 17 15 11

15. 15
Table 11; number of areas survey respondents felt PAL had helped them with.
This shows us that most people (79.6%) feel that PAL has helped them in at least one area
they were asked about in our survey, and 48% felt they’d been helped in multiple areas.
There is however a significant proportion (20.3%) who feel that PAL has not helped them
with any of these areas.

16. 16
5.6 Outcomes for volunteers
Table 12; number of responses to each question asked of PAL volunteers who
responded to the volunteer survey.
 5 of the 6 respondents to those questions felt that they were more confident about
both securing work and about working than when they started volunteering with PAL.
The respondent who strongly disagreed with both of these statements has in fact
recently secured paid employment in the sector.
 All of the respondents felt they had been given the training that they need.
 Most of the respondents were at best unsure whether they felt qualified to work in the
sector.
 The responses were mixed regarding confidence in filling out job applications.
 In 2012/13 17 PAL volunteers left. Of those 11 left into paid employment.
Strongly
disagree
disagree Not sure Agree Strongly
agree
I am more
confident
about working
than when I
started
1 2 3
I am more
confident
about being
able to secure
work than
when I started
1 2 2
I am confident
about
delivering the
PAL service
2 2 2
I am confident
filling out job
applications
2 1 2 1
I have been
given the
training I need
3 2
I feel I am
qualified to
work in the
support
sector
1 3 2

17. 17
6 Conclusions
From a single data collection point we are unable to ascertain ‘distance travelled’ for our
clients. However this evaluation has allowed us to understand a little more about what our
clients feel they need and how we are working to meet those needs.
The sections on our objectives give us a baseline for future measurement of our outputs. It
also gives us an idea of the kind of advice we’re giving. However as mentioned in the
limitations section the delay in setting the PAL service up on St. Mungo’s OPAL client
database means that this data is not as rich as we were hoping. This is covered in the
recommendations section of this report.
The third part of the section on objective C; ‘to provide clients with an ongoing safety net of
support for issues which arise later’ shows that awareness of the service is rising over time;
this is in fact an outcome not an output. This rise in awareness may in part be due to the
passage of time since clients’ originally moving into their PAL supported tenancy, but it does
also seem to reflect some success in our ongoing efforts to promote awareness of the PAL
service amongst those eligible to access it.
The section on Aim 1; ‘to reduce clients’ isolation’ shows an encouraging trend; that over
time PAL clients tend to interact less often with support workers and more often with their
relatives and with community groups. This fits perfectly with PAL and St. Mungo’s aim for our
clients to move away from dependence on ‘paid for’ support, engage with the communities in
which they live and to re-establish contact with family with whom they may have lost touch.
The section on Aim 2; ‘to improve clients’ access to the services they need’ shows us that
most (58.8%) of our clients feel PAL has helped them to access the services they need.
Whilst this is encouraging there is certainly a lot of room for improvement. Similarly it is
encouraging that in 103 of 146 (70.5%) instances where a client who responded to the
survey identified themselves as needing support with an issue, they also identified that they
were linked to a service that provided support with that issue. Again, whilst this is
encouraging, there is clearly space for this to be improved upon.
The nature of our service and of our data collection meant that our tenancy sustainment data
is disappointingly incomplete. This is an area which will be looked at in the recommendations
section of this report.
The section on Aim 3; ‘to improve client’s levels of meaningful occupation’ gives us an
important benchmark for the levels of meaningful occupation and ETE access within the PAL
client group. It does not tell us a great deal however about the contribution PAL has made in
this area. One useful point it identifies is the gap between PAL clients’ feelings around work
and learning and their activity in that area. From this it is clear that an area of development

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for the PAL service is around interactions with services that help people to bridge that gap,
for example St. Mungo’s own ‘recovery college’.
The section on Aim 4; ‘to support clients in optimising income and reducing debt’ throws up
some interesting issues. Firstly the survey question here was badly phrased, as ‘PAL helped
me manage my money’ implies at the very least hands-on budgeting assistance, and even
statutory ‘money management’ which is something many our clients are likely to have come
across in the past. Consequently PAL clients may not have considered help with their
benefits and debts as help ‘with managing my money’. This is not necessarily however the
case, so certainly highlights an area for the service to focus on both in term of delivery and
of reporting.
The overall satisfaction rates of those interviewed, whilst very positive, is drawn from only a
very small sample and so difficult to draw conclusions from. The fact that nearly 80% of PAL
clients felt PAL had helped in at least one of the areas they were asked about is
encouraging, but at the same time leaves 20% of respondents who don’t feel they’ve been
helped by PAL in any of those areas and so certainly leaves room for improvement.
The volunteer outcomes were extremely positive; however few of the volunteers felt qualified
to work in the support sector. This is understandable as that is the objective most of our
volunteers are working towards. The respondents had been with PAL for varying amounts of
time, and consequently few of them are likely to feel they have fully attained this objective.
This chimes with the finding that most respondents were more confident about both
obtaining work and working than when they began volunteering with PAL. The other area
that highlights an issue is PAL volunteers’ confidence in filling out job applications. This is an
area for the recommendations section of this report.

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7 Recommendations
This is a single data collection point evaluation, and is consequently primarily a
benchmarking exercise. It provides a foundation for future evaluations to look at the distance
travelled for PAL client groups, as well as progress in the areas it examines. Future
evaluations will look at clients PAL has worked with in that year; this means they will have
access to outcomes stars for comparison. An evaluation building on this framework should
be conducted annually.
PAL’s implementation of St. Mungo’s OPAL client database will make available much more
detailed and interrogable data for future evaluations. St. Mungo’s is also currently examining
possible technological solutions to better stay in touch with former clients which should
facilitate the collection of more complete tenancy sustainment data.
The outputs given provide a benchmark on which to improve for the PAL service in the
future. The encouraging progress in increasing clients’ awareness of the service indicate that
the initiatives that have aimed to support this should be continued and built upon.
The success PAL has had so far in assisting its clients in moving away from paid support
and engaging more with their relatives and within their community is again a strength ton
which to build.
The levels of meaningful occupation and access to services for the needs identified by PAL
clients show a clear space for PAL to improve these outcomes for our clients. The
resounding message that many more PAL clients feel ready to access employment and
training than are currently doing so indicates a need to build on links with services that help
to bridge this gap, both with external partners and within St. Mungo’s in the form of the
recovery college and the employment team.
The responses around PAL helping clients with managing money indicates a need for
clearer communication at the evaluation stage around the different areas PAL helps people
around their financial situation. It also suggests a need for more in-house expertise in this
area which makes doubly welcome that PAL now have access to the support of St. Mungo’s
new in-house financial inclusion worker.
The general satisfaction rates are a positive sign, but also provide a benchmark on which the
PAL service can look to improve. This is particularly true while there remains a significant
cohort who did not feel PAL had helped them in any of the areas about which they were
asked as part of this evaluation.
The positive feedback from PAL volunteers is another welcome sign. The specific need this
identifies around support with job applications will inform development of the volunteers’

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personal development plans in the future. It also underlines the value of our employability
mentoring partnership with accountancy firm KPMG which most of the survey respondents
had not yet accessed.
The very clear message that PAL volunteers feel they are delivering a service that is
genuinely helping the vulnerable people with which they work, and that it is developing both
their employability and their workplace skills is a huge positive. PAL has relied entirely on
their passion, commitment to the work and empathy with our clients to get to where it is
today, and will continue to do so in order to build on this in the future.