Law centre advisers are set to march in a series of demonstrations aimed at showing the public that the legal aid system is not a 'state subsidy for solicitors'.

Unveiling the plans along with its annual report last week, the Law Centres Federation (LCF) revealed that its workers, including solicitors, will stage protests as part of a national campaign aimed at educating the public about justice gaps. These gaps are particularly cropping up in areas such as housing and welfare benefits law owing to a lack of specialist lawyers in key areas, the LCF argues.


The annual report also said the LCF feared that the civil legal aid system could 'wither on the vine' unless its funding is ring-fenced from the crime budget. Chief executive Steve Hynes said: 'Funding criminal rather than civil legal aid for the socially excluded ignores root problems, and can be compared to treating terminal illness with a plaster'.


However, the LCF is concerned that the Department for Constitutional Affairs might back out of creating a more comprehensive national network of advice agencies as it is frightened about falling out with the Treasury.


The report argued that law centres are making a valuable contribution to providing access to justice. But Mr Hynes complained that many centres could not get specialist lawyers and called for pay to be brought into line with that awarded to other in-house lawyers to combat the problem.