Ministry announces study of local legal advice services
The Law Centres Federation has welcomed the Ministry of Justice's announcement that a study will be undertaken into the funding and provision of local legal advice. The Government is keen to assess how recent legal aid reforms and any wider changes to the way in which local advice agencies are funded, have affected the provision of services. The aim is to identify, bring together and analyse the available evidence across England and Wales. The study will examine:
- The impact of the recession and the demand for civil legal advice;
- The impact of civil legal advice fixed fees on local providers - financially and in terms of the type of work they are taking on;
- The initial experience of Community Legal Advice Centres, including the impact on other providers in the area;
- Trends in funding from sources other than the Community Legal Service, including local authority funding, national lottery funding, charities, central government departments, and others.
The Law Centres Federation (LCF) congratulates Lord Bach for initiating this new study into the funding and provision of local legal advice.
Nick Woolf, Chair of the Law Centres Federation said:
“The impact of the reforms made to legal aid and the introduction of fixed fees has hit Law Centres hard.
“We look forward to providing evidence to the steering group and hope that the study will result in better access to legal services for our clients. Our clients are people who are least able to help themselves, have complex problems needing specialist legal assistance and who face difficult discrimination and human rights issues.
“This study will be an opportunity to look again at how best to serve local communities. Hard times require creative thinking. Services are needed that are flexible and able to respond to the current climate of economic and social downturn. Law Centres have built a model of service delivery over 40 years that is flexible in approach, that uses legal expertise to respond creatively to community needs and that is strategically directed to have the maximum impact.
“We hope the study will identify the value of the Law Centre model of delivering legal services and the impact the current funding schemes are having on ability to deliver quality legal services to local communities.”
The study is due to be finished by March 2009.
