The time is ripe for a proper public debate about the future of publicly funded legal services.Many of our clients live in deprived inner urban areas where there are profound problems of social exclusion, which threaten the cohesion of our society.

The public expenditure implications of legal aid earnings raise questions of value for money and whether parts of the service presently provided by private practice should be delivered by other means.

At the same time, the public perception of the legal profession is not favourable.Those concerned with principles of social justice need to rescue the vision of what might be achieved through a progressive, quality, publicly funded legal service.

The debate about alternatives to private practice must take place within the context of current urban and social policy, and the political and socio-economic effects of central government's programmes since 1979.In a paper to the Commission on Social Justice I have set out in some detail an argument for a new national community law service (NCLS).

Here I attempt to articulate the vision behind the proposal, some broad principles and an agenda for redistribution.The NCLS would be a publicly funded, salaried and free service delivered to each and every deprived community in Britain.

It would take on individual casework in the area of welfare law.More crucially, it would work pro-actively in order to prevent harm being caused to the community or to improve the quality of people's lives.

The service would be concerned to transfer power in a variety of ways to the community from the private sector, property developers and others.

It is this element of using the law to empower the community that distinguishes this proposal from others, including the call to establish a national justice service.For too long, the private sector and its lawyers have had it all their own way.

Lawyers for the community need to intervene early and decisively in the planning system and elsewhere so as to counter this power.

This vision goes much further therefore than meeting unmet legal need and takes seriously the debate about equal access to justice.

It would redirect the undoubted commitment to social justice of law centres and legal aid practitioners.The law centres movement would argue that the need for such a service might be achieved by increasing dramatically its own access to public funds.

This assumes that the movement has been effective in establishing a planned, quality and pragmatic alternative to private practice.Unfortunately, while some law centres have been highly effective, too many have failed, and the movement lacks proper direction or credibility.The broad principles on delivery of an NCLS are: first, it would be part of a new department of legal affairs which would be responsible also for legal aid, the administration of the courts and the planning and implementation of a coherent strategy for justice.Secondly, there should be a central body to establish this nationwide service.

This body would provide an enabling framework and an agreed strategy to be implemented at local level by performance indicators.

The service may be phased in over, say, 20 years.Thirdly, each city or district would have a single law centre run by a director with a management committee with consultative powers.

This centre would contain lawyers, planners, and other workers whose task was to concentrate on strategic, preventative and policy based work.

There would be a clear strategy to link the public legal service with anti-poverty strategies, urban regeneration issues, and mainstream services.Fourthly, to ensure that the service was comprehensive, each centre would operate community legal units in each deprived area.

These units would concentrate on individual casework and refer policy issues to the centre.Fifthly, each centre continuing to meet set performance criteria would get block funding by way of a community law grant to pay for the entire annual costs.Sixthly, there should be an urgent refo rm of the legal education system to address the need to attract more of the best lawyers to what should be seen as a first class legal service with a clear career structure.There should be a rationalisation of the legal aid system which would free money for this new NCLS.

Private practice should concentrate on those areas for which it is best equipped whilst generally welfare law work would be handled by specialist lawyers in the salaried public sector.There are three arguments on redistribution: first, legal aid spending in 1992/93 included £36.3m paid under the green form scheme on welfare law work and £17.8m to solicitors in landlord and tenant cases.

This and other money should be redirected to the NCLS.

The approximate cost of that, based initially on the 57 urban programme areas, would be about £60m.Secondly, one might argue that there should be a ceiling on the fees of top barristers in legal aid cases.Thirdly, leading private practices might pledge a part of their annual profit to the NCLS which, apart from the assistance on funding, would improve radically the public image of the profession, as would a new emphasis on preventative work.This is a new approach to legal services for communities that warrants attention.

It contains a method of financing the costs and addresses important issues of social justice and the need to counter social exclusion.

It offers value for money in redirecting public expenditure to a salaried service, and it enables the legal profession to address the issue of its public image.