The Legal Services Commission (LSC) is withdrawing vital support from the networks that were set up to serve as the backbone of the civil legal aid system, blaming a lack of funding and staff shortages, the Gazette has learned.


Community Legal Service Partnerships (CLSPs) in London have received letters from the LSC informing them that it is 'no longer able to provide the same levels of leadership and administration' because 'resources are being so thinly spread across the region'. The LSC said it will now only attend partnership meetings 'once or twice a year' - and advised at least one CLSP to follow suit, suggesting that 'communication could be exchanged electronically between partners' instead.


The partnerships were launched in 2000 as a key plank of the CLS. Russell Conway, a partner at London firm Oliver Fisher who sits on the Kensington and Chelsea CLSP, said solicitor participants had seen little in return for what they had invested and are furious that the LSC now appears to be pulling out. 'It has all been a huge waste of time and has achieved precisely nothing,' he said.


Sara Chandler, head of the Camden partnership, said local authorities are now showing more support for CLSPs than is the LSC, and urged it to reconsider. 'The stronger CLSPs might still survive, but it will take some pretty strong commitment,' she warned. 'Local authorities are putting their time and money in, but they will say: "If the LSC is not, then why should we? This is supposed to be a partnership".'



Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Richard Miller pointed out that the recent independent review of the CLS by consultants Matrix had called for more support for partnerships (see [2004] Gazette, 29 April, 1). 'The government is currently consulting on those conclusions,' he added. 'It is a matter of surprise that the LSC is apparently pre-empting the conclusions of that consultation by withdrawing support from the partnerships.'



Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva agreed: 'It would be premature for the LSC to reduce its support for these partnerships ahead of the fundamental review of legal aid, particularly as one of its main areas of focus will be the delivery of services in civil legal aid.'


The LSC said it had been in talks with London CLSPs with a view to 'refocusing' the way it delivered civil services, and would be consulting further in the autumn. 'The changes being implemented in London reflect a general move across England and Wales to progress our relationships with CLSPs,' a spokesman insisted.