The future of legal aid funding for vital social welfare law services hangs in the balance

By Nick Dilworth

Not many people know that for over a decade a large number of Citizens Advice Bureau have been funded by the Legal Service Commission to provide legal aid.  It was seen as one of the most far reaching and innovative initiatives which evolved out of the 1999 Access to Justice Act. With the introduction of the Community Legal Service, Bureaux were at long last recognised for their increasing specialism in the delivery of advice across the social welfare spectrum.

In our case we have held a contract with the legal services commission since 1999 which has gone from strength to strength.  Over the years we’ve grown from a small contract when I worked as a part time supervisor with an even more part time admin worker; in recognition of increasing demand we have grown in capacity and now have the largest welfare benefits contract in the county, we successfully bid for a new style consortium contract with other Devon CAB and Shelter to become the predominant access point in the areas of highly specialised debt, welfare benefit and housing advice. This extends to access to family & employment law in conjunction with our solicitor counterparts with whom we have always maintained excellent working relations.

It therefore came as a huge blow to learn that the incoming coalition government proposed massive cuts as part of their comprehensive savings review last October which announced cuts of £350 million pounds in the legal aid budget; it was even more of a shock to learn that the biggest casualty would be social welfare law. The cuts will see welfare benefits advice as no longer accessible under the scheme from October 2012; what’s more debt and housing advice will be cut back to situations where you can only get help if you are in imminent danger of losing your home. It seems hard to understand why the Community Legal Service is being disbanded at a time when the economy is so fragile.  In our case it has a disastrous consequence which could take 65% of all bureau funds away.

In my view these cuts are not only socially regressive but morally incomprehensible.  And so our intensive campaign against these damaging reforms started.  It’s required a huge amount of effort in responding to government’s consultation by way of a full 93 page submission, it was one of 5,000 responses received by the Ministry of Justice who sadly have so far shown little sign of listening to widespread condemnation.  In January of this year we went to parliament for the launch of the ‘Justice for All’ campaign.  We lobbied four county MPs and provided them all with a full briefing paper on the work we do and what we saw as some viable alternatives.  It’s been a relentless and non-stop battle ever since! 

We have lobbied our own MP Sarah Wollaston intensively and I am pleased that she was able to raise awareness of our plight by way of an intervention in the second reading of the Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offender’s Bill in the House of Commons.

The following day it was over to East London and the very plush space age offices of Allen & Over where I attended a question time event attended by key players in the world of legal aid.  I was delighted to get to ask our legal aid minister Jonathon Djanogly a question as to whether the reforms marked the abolition of the Community Legal Services.  In front of a packed audience he assured me they did not, but the recent second reading of the bill tells me otherwise.  It has been remarked in the press that Mr Djanogly was ‘all tied up in knots’ at the meeting; - a view with which I very much agree.

I also wrote an article for the New Statesman magazine “Tales from the Frontline”, it was very satisfying to see this on sale in newsagents.  The campaign has brought me into the world of ‘blogging’, social media was all a bit alien to me but I’ve now written literally hundreds of articles on on-line forums including: Ilegal.org.uk and Mylegal.org.uk; - it’s been immensely satisfying to see some of them twittered around the legal network and linked to the Justice for All website.  It’s been relentless, exciting, depressing, even exhausting at times, but I’m convinced it’s a battle worth fighting for.  We had a very successful ‘day of action’ at the Mansion House in Totnes on the 3rd June.  It coincided with the Justice for All campaign and attracted a good audience of community organisations, culminating in a question and answer session with Sarah Wollaston who kindly agreed to attend.  In answer to a request for a show of hands, everyone in the room indicated government must rethink its plans on such damaging abolition of legal aid.  Our next mission is to get a ‘Lord on Board’; Baroness Judith Jolly has indicated she will listen to us as the reforms proceeds to the lords in this autumn.  There’s still much to be done, far too much to mention here.  And so the battle continues, often into the early hours, there’s lots going on behind the scenes.  We need people to tell their MP’s and councillors to contest these reforms; unless they do so there is an inherent danger that as far as special advice is concerned this really will take the Citizen out of the Advice Bureau, let’s not leave it too late. 

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South Hams CAB provides specialist advice through legal aid on Debt, Welfare Benefits and Housing. If you think you may qualify for legal aid , and require advice on any of the above issues, please fill in  this form .

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