FUNDING: LSC and council combine to offer family and social welfare advice under one roof


The government has pledged £2.6 million of funding in a trail-blazing venture to deliver family and social welfare legal advice via the country's first one-stop Community Legal Advice Centre (CLAC).



The flagship Gateshead CLAC is the result of the first-ever joint contract between the Legal Services Commission (LSC) and a local authority - Gateshead Council - to pool their funding for civil legal aid and social welfare. The pair have agreed to ensure that £2.6 million worth of funding is committed to the CLAC over the next three years.



The service is to be delivered through the Gateshead Law Centre and Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), with input from contracted local law firms Ben Hoare Bell, Swinburne & Jackson and David Gray.



The law centre and CAB were the only providers in the area with contracts for social welfare, meaning there has been no impact on local law firms. The LSC is maintaining other providers of family law advice so as to avoid conflicts of interest.



LSC chief executive Carolyn Regan said: 'Combining our funding has allowed us to ensure that a wide range of services, from basic advice to specialist representation, will become available in all areas of social welfare and family law through the same organisation and delivered through key outreach areas.'



She added that the CLAC also had the mandate to take action to solve the causes of problems and educate people about their legal rights.



Simon Garlick, head of community care and public law at Ben Hoare Bell, said: 'These are interesting times for legal aid lawyers and one doesn't want to be left out in the cold. We are the only community care provider in the region and so don't feel that we are depriving other firms of business - otherwise we might have hesitated to become involved.'



Legal aid minister Vera Baird said the CLAC focused services to create 'a one-stop shop for people seeking vital advice on a number of problems'. She added that the LSC's strategy was to purchase legal services in a way that 'models the law around the public, and not vice-versa'.



Paul Hillier, manager of the CLAC, said: 'Our role is to take legal advice to where it's needed rather than referring people from pillar to post.'



Jonathan Rayner