My main priority in the coming year to is make the Community Legal Service (CLS) a reality across England and Wales.

I am therefore delighted to have this opportunity to tell the profession about our plans for the CLS, as the active involvement of each and every solicitor will be essential to its success.

The CLS is a radical programme to improve the availability of legal information and help available to people.

As the Law Society said in its response to the CLS consultation paper: 'The Access to Justice Act sets out the framework for the most wide-ranging review/reform of the legal aid system in its 50-year history.

The establishment of a Community Legal Service forms part of this reform of the legal aid system and is a proposal which has met with widespread support, both cross-party and within the consumer, advice and legal sectors.

The Law Society supports the concept of developing a Community Legal Service'.

The commitment to form a CLS was in our election manifesto in 1997.

We recognised that many people require better access to good quality legal advice to help them resolve a potential or actual dispute.

The advice they need is over a range of issues -- debt problems, benefit queries, housing complaints -- and the List is almost endless.

Their options on where to go for advice will depend on the issue involved, but also on what they can afford, the accessibility of quality ad vice, and their knowledge of what is available.

Some will go to a solicitor, some will go to their local citizen's advice bureau (CAB) or law centre, but many more will struggle by without seeking advice, as at present such services are fragmented, and access can vary greatly from area to area.

What we need is better co-ordination and planning for legal services so that lawyers, advice workers, volunteers and others at the sharp end can provide a comprehensive, seamless service to the public.

We believe our proposals for the CLS will address these problems.

As the Lord Chancellor has said: 'I want the CLS to deliver the right services of the right quality to allow people to resolve their fights, or seek the protection of the courts'.

We are encouraging the formation of local partnerships -- Community Legal Service Partnerships (CLSPs) -- between funders and providers of legal services.

The local partnerships bring together funders and providers to plan and co-ordinate the provision of services based on the needs and priorities of the local area.

In particular, they bring together the two principal public funders of legal services -- local authorities and the Legal Aid Board (LAB).

The CLSPs will provide the framework for local networks of good quality service providers, and which will operate an active referral system.

Six local authority areas -- pioneers -- agreed to help us draw up the best practice 'blueprint' for CLSPs.

They are Cornwall, Kirklees, Liverpool, Norwich, Nottinghamshire, and Southwark.

The pioneers have been working on developing needs assessment, mapping local services, gap analysis, setting up local referral networks, and drawing up concordats between all the different funders and providers in the local partnership.

Another 44 local authority areas in England and Wales -- associate pioneers -- are also actively helping us draw up the 'blueprint' for CLSPs.

The associate pioneers and pioneers now cover around 25% of the population -- slightly more than 12 million people.

The experiences of the associate pioneers, together with that of the pioneers, will help the many other local authority areas which want to come on board, and are in line to be CLSPs when the CLS is launched in early 2000.

I am greatly encouraged by the enthusiasm shown by local government.

I am also encouraged by the willingness of solicitors and other advisers in the pioneer and associate pioneer areas to get involved in the running of the local partnerships and contribute their expertise to the initiative.

I believe this will also be the case when partnerships cover every local authority area in England and Wales.

We are also developing common quality standards for all the providers participating in the CLSPs through introducing a quality mark to assure service provision under the CLS.

A Quality Task Force including representatives of local government, the legal profession, the voluntary sector, consumer groups and the LAB (supported by a wider Reference Group) has identified the range of 'headline criteria' which the quality mark needed to cover.

Then a smaller working group comprising the Law Society, Advice Services Alliance, the LAB, and the Lord Chancellor's Department, prepared detailed draft quality mark specifications to cover provision of information, general help and specialist help.

The draft specifications build on a wide range of existing quality frameworks, including the Legal Aid Franchise Quality Assurance Standard (LAFQAS), especially in relation to Specialist help.

I asked the LAB to take responsibility for publishing a consultation paper the proposed specifications, ensuring the widest possible circulation.

The paper was published on 31 August and the consultation exercise will run until 15 October 1999.

In the meantime, the working group will continue to meet develop auditing and monitoring procedures.

We are also developing a CLS Internet Web site to improve access to legal information and help.

Following extensive consultation, the broad details of the site have been agreed.

The first phase of the project wilt be a 'gateway',facilitating access to existing services already available over the Internet well as a sign-posting facility to direct people to local and national services.

This will be the basis of future developments of the Web site.

We will also be publishing a regular newsletter on progress in the CLS, setting up a 'champions' panel of senior figures from the legal profess local government, business, the voluntary sector and the media, to advise on the promotion of the CLS.

We are also looking carefully at all the 182 responses received so far to the consultation paper on the CLS.

The responses to the paper, the continuing work on quality and the Web site, and the experiences of the pioneering areas, will all play a key part in developing the final shape of the CIS.

In the best traditions of the profession, I am confident that solicitors will want to become involved and firmly put legal services at the heart of the community.