LEGAL AID: conference told that funding shortage affecting access in countryside and firms

The Community Legal Service (CLS) is in danger of failing those most in need in rural areas owing to a lack of government funding, the man in charge of the service's long-term plans warned last week.

Speaking at a joint Legal Action Group/Advice Services Alliance (ASA) conference in London, CLS strategy unit head Martin South said it had been forced to make tough decisions about access schemes in the countryside if they were not cost effective.

He said the Legal Services Commission (LSC) was unable to ensure there were solicitors in every village - even if it wanted to - because there was a 'lack of funding overall to meet the need for legal services'.

When quizzed by delegates on why meritorious schemes had not been funded, Mr South said: 'If only we had more money, we might not have had to make the decisions we have made.'

Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said the CLS was also in peril because a lack of funding was causing law firms to drop out of the system - but she said it was 'frustrating that the LSC appears to be quite slow to recognise that reality'.

She also criticised the LSC for suggesting that the way forward for legal aid might be rationalising the number of firms.

'That is not the way to deal with the provision of publicly funded services,' she warned.

Richard Miller, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, predicted more hardship for solicitors next year, when firms with poor records will have eight weeks' notice that their contracts will be terminated - and branded the timescale 'shocking'.

Mr Miller added: 'For some lawyers, this will lead to closure of the firm and personal bankruptcy.'

ASA director Richard Jenner said that early indications from its recent research on CLS partnerships had suggested that more private practice firms were turning their backs on the scheme, while some groups - such as ethnic minorities - had been left out.

Mr Jenner added that the partnerships appeared to have 'done little to tackle unmet need' and have seen 'at best modest achievements'.

The conference's keynote speaker, LSC chief executive Clare Dodgson, said it was 'on the right track [with the CLS] but has still got further to go' in achieving its aims of providing good quality and accessible legal services that combat social exclusion.

Paula Rohan