Post by jman on Oct 25, 2011 19:25:01 GMT 1
Jon Robins with another great article-why not send it to your MP. Extract and link to full article below.
"Why nearly a third of us could soon be living in a legal advice desertPublic funds left for social welfare law won't be enough for not-for-profits to hire one full-time caseworker in 30% of areas
Jon Robins guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 10.31 BST Article history
Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly claims he is 'committed to a future role for NfP agencies'.
It doesn't take much to destabilise the precarious funding ecosystem of the legal not-for-profit (NFP) sector. I wrote recently that some 18 of 56 law centres could close as a result of legal aid cuts that propose to remove £350m from the £2.2bn total budget. Ministers want to scrap the legal services most needed by the poor and vulnerable and which are at the heart of a threadbare network of advice agencies. The idea is to remove social welfare law from the legal aid scheme: that comprises advice on welfare benefits, employment, debt, immigration, plus most housing except where there is homelessness.
The campaign group Justice for All has done some number crunching. It reckons that public funds left for social welfare law would not be enough for not-for-profits to employ one full-time caseworker in 30% of areas. If you want to find out whether you're unlucky enough to live in one of those potential legal advice deserts, there is a handy-colour coded map of the UK.
The Legal Services Commission, which runs the legal aid scheme in England and Wales, reckons full-time advisers need to have between 250 and 300 cases each year to justify the expense of taking on an adviser.
The government says that in 40 of 133 of the Commission's "procurement" areas the total number of face-to-face debt and housing cases would come to less than 300 cases a year as a result of the cuts. This, according to Justice for All, would make a fulltime post of an advice worker barely or completely unsustainable in those areas post cuts.
The somewhat beseiged justice minister Jonathan Djanogly told delegates at this month's Legal Aid Practitioners Group conference that he was "committed to a future role for NfP agencies" and "personally committed" to "defining a new, general advice provision delivered by NfP bodies outside of the redrawn legal aid scheme". In light of the scale of the cuts and the obvious financial vulnerability of the sector, it's hard to see what he means. Djanogly pointed to a £107m transition fund from the Office for Civil Society, of which he said "more than £5m will go to citizens advice bureaux and law centres". Ken Clarke has also announced a further £20m for this financial year, albeit "transitional".
The homeless charity Shelter claims that this "sudden slashing" of legal aid funding means that "it's simply not viable" for housing advice providers to continue to deliver quality advice services. Shelter has a network of around 40 local support services across England and Wales, helps over 25,000 under legal aid contracts and employs over 200 advisers and 40 solicitors.
I spoke to Simon Pugh, head of legal services at the charity and Tracy Guy, service manager for Shelter North East last week. Legal aid accounts for around 60% of the non-charitable income and was "the largest funding stream for our advice work", Pugh explained; pointing out that the charity doesn't just do housing but debt and benefits advice as well.
To understand the vulnerability of the legal NfP sector, the Law Centre Federation reckons that approximately 46% of its members' total funding came from legal aid and 40% from local authorities and centres either had lost or were about to lose 53% of their local authority funding.
Like most local centres, Tracy Guy explains that the legal aid contract in Newcastle makes up around 60% of Newcastle Shelter's funding (putting to one side a new prison law contract Shelter has just won in the North East). "If the proposals go through, funding would drop dramatically and – worse case scenario – we'd be reliant upon other funding streams to keep us afloat plus a substantial amount of money from Shelter to plug the gaps." Those other funding streams are not, in Guy's words, "long term" funding streams.
Pugh says: "Fundamental to what we are about is helping people find a home, secure and keep that home. A significant part of that is legal advice." To break down those numbers further, Guy reckons half of their 2,000 clients in Newcastle last year were LSC funded and, if the cuts go through, there would be "a reduction in 62% of the work we can do". And how is life at Newcastle Shelter? Phenomenally busy, replies Guy. If you want housing advice you already face a six-week waiting list (unless it is an emergency) and if your problem relates to debt or welfare benefits, a two to three week wait........................."
Rest at link below :
www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/oct/25/third-of-us-legal-desert
"Why nearly a third of us could soon be living in a legal advice desertPublic funds left for social welfare law won't be enough for not-for-profits to hire one full-time caseworker in 30% of areas
Jon Robins guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 10.31 BST Article history
Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly claims he is 'committed to a future role for NfP agencies'.
It doesn't take much to destabilise the precarious funding ecosystem of the legal not-for-profit (NFP) sector. I wrote recently that some 18 of 56 law centres could close as a result of legal aid cuts that propose to remove £350m from the £2.2bn total budget. Ministers want to scrap the legal services most needed by the poor and vulnerable and which are at the heart of a threadbare network of advice agencies. The idea is to remove social welfare law from the legal aid scheme: that comprises advice on welfare benefits, employment, debt, immigration, plus most housing except where there is homelessness.
The campaign group Justice for All has done some number crunching. It reckons that public funds left for social welfare law would not be enough for not-for-profits to employ one full-time caseworker in 30% of areas. If you want to find out whether you're unlucky enough to live in one of those potential legal advice deserts, there is a handy-colour coded map of the UK.
The Legal Services Commission, which runs the legal aid scheme in England and Wales, reckons full-time advisers need to have between 250 and 300 cases each year to justify the expense of taking on an adviser.
The government says that in 40 of 133 of the Commission's "procurement" areas the total number of face-to-face debt and housing cases would come to less than 300 cases a year as a result of the cuts. This, according to Justice for All, would make a fulltime post of an advice worker barely or completely unsustainable in those areas post cuts.
The somewhat beseiged justice minister Jonathan Djanogly told delegates at this month's Legal Aid Practitioners Group conference that he was "committed to a future role for NfP agencies" and "personally committed" to "defining a new, general advice provision delivered by NfP bodies outside of the redrawn legal aid scheme". In light of the scale of the cuts and the obvious financial vulnerability of the sector, it's hard to see what he means. Djanogly pointed to a £107m transition fund from the Office for Civil Society, of which he said "more than £5m will go to citizens advice bureaux and law centres". Ken Clarke has also announced a further £20m for this financial year, albeit "transitional".
The homeless charity Shelter claims that this "sudden slashing" of legal aid funding means that "it's simply not viable" for housing advice providers to continue to deliver quality advice services. Shelter has a network of around 40 local support services across England and Wales, helps over 25,000 under legal aid contracts and employs over 200 advisers and 40 solicitors.
I spoke to Simon Pugh, head of legal services at the charity and Tracy Guy, service manager for Shelter North East last week. Legal aid accounts for around 60% of the non-charitable income and was "the largest funding stream for our advice work", Pugh explained; pointing out that the charity doesn't just do housing but debt and benefits advice as well.
To understand the vulnerability of the legal NfP sector, the Law Centre Federation reckons that approximately 46% of its members' total funding came from legal aid and 40% from local authorities and centres either had lost or were about to lose 53% of their local authority funding.
Like most local centres, Tracy Guy explains that the legal aid contract in Newcastle makes up around 60% of Newcastle Shelter's funding (putting to one side a new prison law contract Shelter has just won in the North East). "If the proposals go through, funding would drop dramatically and – worse case scenario – we'd be reliant upon other funding streams to keep us afloat plus a substantial amount of money from Shelter to plug the gaps." Those other funding streams are not, in Guy's words, "long term" funding streams.
Pugh says: "Fundamental to what we are about is helping people find a home, secure and keep that home. A significant part of that is legal advice." To break down those numbers further, Guy reckons half of their 2,000 clients in Newcastle last year were LSC funded and, if the cuts go through, there would be "a reduction in 62% of the work we can do". And how is life at Newcastle Shelter? Phenomenally busy, replies Guy. If you want housing advice you already face a six-week waiting list (unless it is an emergency) and if your problem relates to debt or welfare benefits, a two to three week wait........................."
Rest at link below :
www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/oct/25/third-of-us-legal-desert