DLCs - Impartial Advisers or Mobility Retailers?

It is now 10 years that the Independent Living website has been here, providing impartial information for carers and disabled or elderly individuals looking for equipment and services to help them manage more independently.

Perhaps not surprisingly, site visitors have sometimes confused us with the local organisations which are generally known as an Independent Living Centre or Disabled Living Centre. Given the similarity of the names, it is an understandable mistake, and to be honest, considering ourselves all to be in the same business of providing information without strings, we have not chafed at the confusion, and have often directed enquirers to their nearest DLC, as the place where they could try out a range of equipment without any commercial pressure.

Sadly, this fundamental fact about ILCs or DLCs is not a fact.

Depending on which centre you visit, you may indeed find that you can view a range of equipment, and perhaps try it out, or you may find that you are in a mobility retailer.

Without any apparent debate, it seems that a number of DLCs have turned themselves into shops. I find this difficult to understand on a number of levels. First, and most significantly, the entire raison d'être for an independent advice centre is to provide independent advice. As soon as the people giving the advice are also selling products, it is no longer independent. Individuals visiting a DLC are doing so almost always because they don't know the options available, and they should be able to expect a fair overview of the market, rather than a nudge towards whichever products the centre manager has for sale, regardless of their suitability.

However well-intentioned the staff at a centre where products are sold, they cannot possibly be fulfilling the brief to give impartial advice: they may well say that there is no pressure on people to buy, and that if the visitor is not happy with what they have for sale, they refer them to other stockists, but that is not the point. Inevitably, a person who is not familiar with mobility aids will be swayed by the selection that has already been made by the expert they are consulting. It may not even occur to them to ask about other possibilities.

My second concern is that Independent Living Centres often have charitable status - they are certainly all grouped under an umbrella organisation, Assist UK, which is a charity. I have written here before about charities that muddy the waters between themselves and commercial operators - Is Charity Just Another Big Business? - and I fear that this may be another example of enterprises that should be at one remove from commercial activities, getting involved regardless.

Having sought feedback across the network, the responses I have received underline the confusion. They range from what I would have thought defined an ILC:

"... in general all centres offer impartial advice so don't retail, all centres have a good range of equipment for people to try and most employ an occupational therapist." Swindon ILC

and "We do not sell anything, but our clients are given advice about how to proceed and also given information about manufacturers and retailers." The William Merritt Disabled Living Centre (Leeds)

To "a range of daily living and mobility aids for people to 'try and buy'....We are currently in the process of expanding our service, so much more will be available in the coming months." Inspire Community Trust, Kent

and "We do have some products in stock to sell, if not we are usually able to get them in with in 2 days." Disability Equipment Bradford

A look at the Disabled Living Foundation (the London DLC) website makes it absolutely clear that they don't sell any products, yet I understand that Manchester, one of the largest in the country, is well advanced with plans to integrate a retail and online shopping facility into their advice centre.

My researches suggest that perhaps twice as many don't sell as do; it is certainly not yet universal, and indeed there seems to be concern in some more traditional centres at the idea of getting involved in sales.

Surely this debate should have been conducted in an open fashion, rather than allowing commercialisation to creep up on what were centres of excellent, impartial advice, in a backdoor way. If you went to your local Citizens Advice Bureau, and they offered to sell you the services of a debt consolidation company, how would you feel? Would you still trust them to give you the best advice without commercial consideration, or would it seem that they had lost their special, trustworthy status?

There are many people working in this field who don't want Independent Living Centres turned into mobility shops - there are plenty of those around already. Despite the steps that have already been taken along this path, it isn't too late at least to ask the question, and challenge all those people involved to let us know why the ethos of DLCs has been changed in this way.

Do please add your comments to the discussion - just click the comment button, and if you prefer to remain anonymous, you can!

Charities still exploiting their position unfairly

I am publishing this on behalf of a well-respected manufacturer who wants to remain anonymous.

"I thought you may be interested to learn about a letter I received a couple of days ago. An independent charitable organisation has approached us requesting we consider them to become a retailer of our products - no shocks there then, this practice now appears to be becoming very common.

The real shock to me was that they are hoping for big lottery funding at the end of September this year to allow them to set up a full retail outlet for mobility products!! Not only that but in the meantime they have requested that we provide them with an account on a sale or return basis!!

You can't blame them for trying I suppose, but somehow I just can't get my head around the fact that they not only expect us to fund the business venture through charitable donations (lottery funding etc) but they also want the goods they stock for free!!

Furthermore, what about our existing retail partners who are loyal to our products and with whom we have developed a quality business relationship - do they expect us to ignore them?

I am a great believer in competition, I think it engenders a healthy environment for development and improvement but - and it is a big but - there needs to be consistency and a fair, level playing field.

For all the reasons you have previously reported, charitable organisations have the upper hand over non-charitable business, and as a manufacturer we are deeply concerned at the emergence of these so called charity retailers as it puts us and our retail partners in a very difficult position.

Taking this situation to its ultimate conclusion, perhaps all businesses should simply register as charitable organisations? Either that or we could potentially see the slow decline of the business community as we currently know it."

I've written about the commercial activities of charities before, and although I have some sympathy for organisations that are doing good work, and hurting in the current financial climate, I don't see why good, caring businesses - which are probably even more affected by the credit crunch - should be disadvantaged in this way.

What do you think?