Ms Joanne Condon:

On whether things are getting worse, one figure we have seen in our casework is that up to 60% of the advocacy cases we are currently working on have between two and seven advocacy issues per case. That is quite a growth within the period during which we have worked over recent years, so "Yes" is the answer to the question from our perspective of what we are seeing in our casework. The complexity of the issues people are facing is multifaceted. For people to try to navigate the complexity of the system is one thing, but due to multiple issues in many types of services and many different interactions with various Departments, it is absolutely impossible for many of those we support to navigate that without adequate support. This goes back to the point about those who cannot access the support they need to navigate the system. That, in itself, is very disempowering for people.