4.7m aid for local advice

INITIATIVE BUDGET: practitioners question use of resources following loss of 400 legal aid firms

The Legal Services Commission has pledged 4.7 million to community legal advice initiatives across England and Wales after approving more than 60 projects in the second round of its partnership initiative budget (PIB) spending.

The money will be targeted at 64 projects focusing on community legal education, and promoting links between community groups and legal advice providers.

They include domestic violence awareness, financial literacy and debt prevention initiatives, and schemes addressing the needs of the young and elderly.

Community Legal Service partnerships (CLSPs) have sponsored the projects.

One initiative to benefit will be a community care education and awareness programme run by Sunderland-based Ben Hoare Bell - the only law firm in the north-east to hold a contract in that practice area.

It joined with fellow Sunderland CLSP agencies Northumbria Law School, Age Concern, MIND and Sunderland Carers Centre to make the 29,000 bid, but the parties involved have also raised an extra 18,000 in matched funding.

The money will go towards employing a specialist adviser for a year and research into advice needs and how to increase local awareness about community care issues.

Ben Hoare's office manager Jeff Dean said the lack of specialist advice on community care in the area had been a concern for some time.

'The decision to grant us a contract and the success of the PIB bid show that the local CLSPs can play a role both in identifying service gaps and in identifying innovative ways to meet needs,' he added.

But the Legal Aid Practitioners Group said no amount of expenditure on largely preventive services would make up for the loss of almost 400 legal aid firms since March 2003.

Chairman David Emmerson added: 'We support the principle of the PIB, but at a time of such harsh budgetary constraints, it is questionable whether this is the best use of available resources.'

Paula Rohan