Press Releases pre-May 2010

A refined Specialist Support Service and increased Community Legal Service Grants, designed to improve access to justice, were unveiled today by the Legal Services Commission (LSC).

The Specialist Support Service provides second-tier support to legal aid advice providers through telephone advice and support with casework. A tender process for £2m worth of contracts will start in January. The LSC aims to have the improved service run for at least three years from April 2008.  This is designed to streamline and focus existing provision while delivering the best use of public funds.

The LSC will also be increasing the budget for Community Legal Service Grants to £1 million a year for three years. These grants make a valuable contribution to the work of the Community Legal Service and are an effective way of funding complementary services that cannot be funded from other sources.

The grants will be available for services including those that help not-for-profit providers to adapt how they deliver civil legal aid following the recent reforms. They will also be available for services focused on areas such as special Children Act proceedings, asylum, mental health and help with social welfare issues that will enable people to avoid or climb out of social exclusion.

Carolyn Regan, Chief Executive of the Legal Services Commission, said:
“Having listened to the views of those who responded to the consultation we have decided to retain both the Specialist Support Service and the Community Legal Service Grants.

“The new Specialist Support Service and Community Legal Service Grants will be refined so that they complement our strategy for the Community Legal Service and our wider objectives, of ensuring vulnerable clients have access to the advice services they need while obtaining better value for taxpayers money.”

The LSC will continue to fund consultancy services to cover all five areas of social welfare law plus immigration, mental health and public law.  However, the service will no longer continue to provide training to service providers. This reflects the fact that there is already a high level of quality training being delivered by other sources.

Savings from the reforms will be reinvested to provide additional civil legal aid services to members of the public. This means that more people will receive help and many service providers will have the opportunity to obtain additional work at no extra cost to the taxpayer.

Media information

Daniel Kellingley   020 7759 0415

Notes to editors

The five categories of social welfare law are; community care, debt, employment, housing and welfare benefits.

Nearly 800,000 Legal Help acts of civil assistance were provided in 2006/07. This represents a 12.5% increase on the previous year.

The full response to the consultation on Specialist Support Services can be found on our website at: http://consult.legalservices.gov.uk/inovem/consult.ti/specialist.support/consultationHome

The original consultation, ‘Specialist Support Services and the Community Legal Service Grants’ opened in June 2007 and closed on 10 September 2007.