This research was carried out at Goldsmiths, University of London, with funding from the Leverhulme Trust. The research team would like to express their appreciation of this funding that made the research possible. 

For further details please contact: Marjorie Mayo, m.mayo@gold.ac.uk or Maria Dumas, m.dumas@gold.ac.uk 

A copy of the full report, Accessing Social Justice in Deprived Communities, including an executive summary can be downloaded from: (click here)

(c) Goldsmiths, University of London 2012.

[This is a shortened version of the executive summary especially for this blogpost.]

Introduction

The research for this report has been undertaken at a critical time for Law Centres. When the research started, the previous government was promoting public sector modernisation with more marketised approaches to the provision of legal aid. By the time that the research was being concluded, these pressures were being increased even further – the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Bill was proposing to reduce the scope of Legal Aid from key aspects of employment, welfare benefits, debt, aspects of housing law, immigration and family law, along with legal aid for school exclusions, clinical negligence and personal injury cases. This would have serious consequences for the funding of Law Centres that provide such services. And the consequences would be devastating for those whom Law Centres serve, people in disadvantaged communities, who would be unable to access legal services by any other means.

Some Law Centres have also been facing cuts in funding from local authorities and other funders. As a result of all these pressures an estimated third of Law Centres are under serious threat of closure – at the very time that the number of people needing legal advice services has been increasing as a result of a combination of factors including high levels of unemployment, debt, public expenditure cuts and welfare reforms.

So how have Law Centres been coping with these increasing challenges? How have they been managing the pressures and the tensions – meeting the requirements of funding regimes that don’t fit with their clients’ needs, whilst holding on to their ethos and values, providing access to justice for all?

 

Background

The challenges from public service modernisation reforms

• The research found that New Labour reforms were believed to have:
• Underfunded Law Centres’ work with clients
• Put additional pressures on management systems and management committees
• Reduced the scope for public legal education
• Reduced the time available for outreach and community work
• Undermined Law Centres’ wider preventative and policy work (including taking test cases)

For Law Centre staff, there have been tensions as a result, holding onto professional values and identities whilst operating effectively in this more ‘business-like’ context. The research highlighted the importance to staff of:

• Giving each client the time they really needed whilst meeting targets for numbers of clients seen and cases closed
• Holding onto collaborative ways of working whilst managing competitive tendering processes effectively
• Working with increasing numbers of volunteers.

Methods

This research explored these questions. The team was based at Goldsmiths, University of London and independently funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The researchers carried out a survey of 107 staff and volunteers from 25 different Law Centres in England. In addition 112 interviews were carried out – exploring the views of local authorities, advice agencies and other legal aid providers as well as the views of Law Centre staff and volunteers.

 

Findings

There was widespread evidence of demoralisation as staff struggled to hold onto the Law Centres’ ethos, whilst becoming more business-like in the ways in which they operated. This was often exacerbated by lack of security, funding problems and the threat of further significant changes to Legal Aid. Several Law Centres had closed from lack of funding during the research and some of those interviewed were in the process of leaving their jobs in the Law Centres that remained, because of the pressures they were experiencing.

Despite the multiple challenges faced by Law Centres and their staff, the research encountered impressive levels of commitment. Many staff members have been working long hours and contributing unpaid overtime in order to keep services operating effectively for their clients – because they have been so committed to the importance of providing access to justice in disadvantaged communities.

The research also found positive examples of collaboration between Law Centres, local authorities and other agencies, where partnerships had formed to deliver joined up advices services and meet current challenges together. This type of strategy had multiple benefits including better mapping and targeting of provision, the ability to jointly attract funding, delivering complementary services more cost effectively, facilitating cross referrals and offering better promotion of services.

Response

Law Centres have been developing strategies in response to current challenges and exploring ways of maintaining services. These include:

• Charging some clients (although very few clients would be likely to be able to contribute significantly, especially if they were on benefits)
• Setting up trading arms, to cross subside legal aid work (although it could be challenging to compete with private firms for business in the current economic climate)
• Undertaking ‘no win, no fee’ work (although this might become seen as ‘ambulance chasing’)

These types of responses were being considered although each had its potential problems and limitations.

Particularly promising responses included the development of collaborative rather than competitive approaches, working with other advice agencies in partnership, along with local authorities, to provide a seamless service for clients, across a particular area, including in some instances the use of telephone and web based advice systems.

Conclusion

In summary, the research confirmed the value of Law Centres as well as the values of those who worked and volunteered within them. There was strong agreement on this across the spectrum by those who were interviewed, including local authority councillors and officers, solicitors in private practice providing pro bono legal advice and staff from a range of other advice agencies. As an advice worker concluded ‘I really don’t know what we’ll do if they (the Law Centre) don’t survive’. ‘Save our Law Centres, they are crucial’. What was clear from the interviews was the fundamental role that Law Centres can play, underpinning and supporting the work of individuals, communities and other agencies.

Despite their efforts to hone their business skills, develop new forms of income generation and attract new sources of funding and volunteers, Law Centres also need sustainable funding from public resources.

This research was carried out at Goldsmiths, University of London, with funding from the Leverhulme Trust. The research team would like to express their appreciation of this funding that made the research possible.

For further details please contact: Marjorie Mayo, m.mayo@gold.ac.uk or Maria Dumas, m.dumas@gold.ac.uk

A copy of the full report, Accessing Social Justice in Deprived Communities, including an executive summary can be downloaded from: www.gold.ac.uk/departments/pace

 

 

[Thank you very much to Matt Scott, a Community Researcher at Goldsmiths, for the information contained in this executive summary.]