Competition: up to 75 community legal advice centres could be opened under Legal Services Commission plans

Civil legal aid solicitors in deprived areas will have to start forming alliances and enter into bidding competitions if they want to handle social welfare work under plans revealed by the Legal Services Commission (LSC).


Unveiling the initiative in its Community Legal Service (CLS) strategy last week, the commission said it plans to introduce jointly-funded single entities - called community legal advice centres (CLACs) - which would provide advice on social welfare areas such as community care, debt, employment, housing and benefits.


'The centres could be run by any appropriate provider, such as a private practice solicitor, or a not-for-profit agency,' the LSC suggested. 'We will also welcome opportunities for suppliers to come together to bid as a consortia to provide the services under one contract.'


The commission will target the 88 government-allocated neighbourhood renewal areas, which are the most deprived in the country. 'This benchmark suggests we would be developing a possible maximum of 75 centres,' the strategy added.


The LSC expects to open a dozen centres within the next 12 months, with discussions at an advanced stage with local authorities to launch CLACs in Leicester and Gateshead.


In less densely populated areas where there is insufficient scope to set up a CLAC, the LSC plans to develop networks where law firms and agencies are commissioned to provide an integrated service.


It said it may 'reduce or not renew' some of its other social welfare contracts from April 2007 where CLACs or networks are supplying the services.


The commission also revealed it is now helping more than 600,000 people get civil legal advice each year. An extra 70,000 are using the CLS Direct telephone helpline, which it plans to expand.


LSC executive director Richard Collins said: 'The strategy will ensure that we commission services in locations where clients need them rather than where legal aid advisers and practitioners might otherwise choose to provide them.'


But the Legal Aid Practitioners Group said there has to be proper piloting.


Director Richard Miller also complained: 'I am insufficiently fluent in double-think to be able to work out from this what our members who do family law and other social welfare law services should plan to do if a CLAC is set up in their area. There is a high probability that these contradictions will lead to lawyers abandoning social welfare law contracts.'


Law Society President Kevin Martin said: 'Where existing provision is serving communities well, this should not be duplicated. A roll-out of CLACs without consultation and without evaluation may lead to irreversible decline in the supply of legal advice from other sources in the areas selected, as well as creating funding issues.'