Evidence submitted by Child Poverty Action
Group (CPAG)
Specialist support is a highly successful and
much-needed scheme. It increases access to high quality advice
and represents value for money. There is a demand for this service
by front-line advisers and this service is of direct benefit to
current and future clients.
— The Specialist Support Project (SSP)
provides expert help in all areas of social welfare law to front-line
advisers and lawyers advising members of the public in Citizens
Advice bureaux, solicitors' firms, law centres, and advice agencies[1].
It gives advice on complex one-off queries, and provides support
with casework and training. The SSP is funded by the Legal Services
Commission (LSC). It is provided by highly reputable lawyers and
advice organisations with many years of experience in their specialist
areas free to eligible organisations. The training is subsidised
and tailored to meet the needs of the advisers.
— Following a successful Pilot which
ran for three years, the LSC made a strategic decision to make
Specialist Support a mainstream contracting option from 2004—three
year contracts were signed in 2004. The Pilot was thoroughly evaluated.
Two user surveys formed part of the evaluation and in the 2003
user satisfaction survey 92% of those that responded said that
the service led to successful outcomes for the client. The evaluation
looked at access, quality, cost and impact. It found that Specialist
Support does increase access to legal services for clients as
it gives them access to higher levels of expert help which may
not otherwise be available. The quality of help was found to be
extremely high—one of the most positive impacts was that
users reported that they were able to progress matters more quickly
and more confidently and had improved their knowledge of the law.
Users valued it as an expert service which meets a real need and
felt that it was of a high quality with good level of responsiveness
and availability.
— In late 2004, the LSC wanted to revise
some of the terms in the SSP contracts and these were negotiated
and agreed on between November 2004 to June 2005—revised
contracts were to be duly sent to contracts holders for signature.
— On 27 July 2005 SSP contract holders
received a letter from the LSC informing them that the "Top
Slice", of which SSP is a part, was to be reviewed and that
the LSC regretted needing to delay implementation of the newly
agreed schedules until after the review. Several of the contract
holders submitted a response to the Top Slice Review.
— At no point had the LSC informed
the SSP contract holders that there was a possibility of termination.
Yet on 16 January 2006 the LSC notified all SSP contract holders
of its decision to terminate all the SSP contracts on six months
notice. Despite the fact that the review accepted that the SSP
meets the LSC corporate priorities, some of the Community Legal
Service strategy proposals and is value for money (the Top Slice
Review Terms of Reference) and that it does help ensure access
to quality advice, the LSC says that funding for SSP is not sustainable
in the current climate.
— The LSC's decision to terminate SSP
contracts is contrary to its corporate priorities and its proposals
for the Community Legal Service to:
— ensure clients have access to
quality services—the SSP enables and ensures that the client
has access to the highest quality of advice;
— ensure a more holistic approach
to advice—the SSP enables front-line services to provide
a more holistic service giving access to advice on complex issues
across several areas of law which would not otherwise be available
to the client; and
— focus on categories of law that
have the greatest impact upon those who face poverty, disadvantage
or exclusion—these are the areas covered by the SSP.
— The decision is also contrary to
the LSC's own evidence which shows that the SSP increases public
access to frontline advice services and to its report on the SSP
to Fundamental Legal Aid Review which stated there is a need for
specialist support and highlighted that demand will rise.
— The LSC should not pull the plug
on the SSP. Without the SSP some of the very positive proposals
set out in the vision for the Community Legal Service will not
be properly realised. To promote the seamless, accessible, quality
assured advice system the LSC says it wants, any development in
front-line services needs to be matched by an availability of
second-tier support. Much of the time and money that has been
spent on setting up this valuable and successful project will
have been wasted.
Child Poverty Action Group
February 2006
1 The SSP funds organisations including Citizens Advice
Bureaux, Child Poverty Action Group, London Advice Services Alliance,
MIND, Terrance Higgins Trust, Joint Council for the Welfare of
Immigrants, Shelter, Shelter Cymru, Liberty, Disability Law Service,
Public Law Solicitors, Public Law Project, Christian Khan Solicitors,
Doughty Street Chambers, Two Garden Court Chambers, 1 Pump Court
Chambers, Scott-Moncrieff, Harbour & Sinclair, and Morgans
Solicitors Back
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