Funding warning

Your article about solicitors and community legal service partnerships (CLSPs) (see [2002] Gazette, 21 March, 24), is of interest to Citizens Advice Bureaux, which share many of the same concerns.

CLSPs have developed at different rates, and experience of them has been mixed, but the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (NACAB) has always taken the view that it is better to be in than out.

Partnerships can be used as a way of highlighting needs for advice and legal services and for solicitors and advice agencies to work together on common interests.

For example, we are concerned about the difficulty many bureau clients are experiencing in finding legal aid solicitors in some areas.

NACAB has continued to press the Legal Services Commission to provide expenses for those attending meetings, often in their own time.

A larger issue is that there is a limit to what can be done to meeting unmet need by using existing resources better.

Bureaux and other providers cannot take on services without additional funding.

We have stressed the need for more resources since the CLS was first launched, and will continue to do so.

David Harker, chief executive, National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux