At Housing Law Practitioners Association meetings last year, I heard predictions of a grim future for the provision of housing law advice in the country and talk of how Kent had no housing advisers. Like Simon Peter on the Mount of Olives, I thought that while other advisers left I would continue.

I have been acting as a housing adviser for about five years. I am afraid to say that next week will be my last week as a housing adviser. I am married and have three children to support and the reality is that under Community Legal Service (CLS) public funding conditions, I can no longer afford financially or emotionally to be involved with such work.


When I talk about the work being emotionally draining, I am talking about listening to people describing suicide attempts and having sometimes to tell people that they are going to be homeless as there is nothing that you can do for them.


I met with the minister for the CLS at a pro bono week launch of the Tottenham Law Centre's advice sessions. I was convinced by him that there was no future in doing this work. Though the government was seeking to make matter starts available to a greater number of advisers, and to award more contracts in this area, it was not going to address the fact that the remuneration for this work was not going to improve.


The reality of CLS work is that with the bureaucracy involved there is a great deal of paperwork that needs to be done on each case that will not be paid for by the CLS. Also, a lot of the work involves out-of-hours work with people with mental health problems, sitting with them awaiting a court order from a duty judge in the High Court. Even though a lot more time has been spent on the file than can be claimed, it is routinely taxed down by the court or by the CLS, inevitably making the work less attractive.


I understand that my last firm took about six months to recruit a replacement for me, and that in the interim work was largely covered by a trainee solicitor. I hope that my current firm will find a replacement more easily, but I fear it too will struggle. I currently supervise a trainee solicitor who is also doing housing work with me. This has taken a lot of the burden of CLS legal help work from me, allowing me to focus rather more on the slightly more lucrative CLS public funding certificate work (about £20 per hour better). The trainee who works with me used to be a housing benefit officer and would make a brilliant housing solicitor but the lack of financial incentive means that he has already decided he will not continue doing such work for long.


I am sad to be leaving this area of work, as I care very much about the plight of the poor - but as a husband and a father, when a City firm offers you a more rewarding job, matters of conscience have to take second place to supporting your wife and family.



Alister Cryan, Tayo Arowojolu, London