Give our bureaux more cash

Give our bureaux more cash

It's a good thing that more money is being made available to provide free legal, benefits and other advisory services. But you really have to question the way the Legal Services Commission is going about this.

We are in the midst of a full-blown financial crisis. Repossessions are rocketing, bankruptcy rates are soaring and that is before unemployment takes hold. Just wait until we slide into recession - it will make this period of financial stress seem like a walk in the park.

Citizens Advice bureaux are creaking under the strain of new clients lining up at their doors. But rather than seeing this as a sign of failure, shouldn't it be regarded as a success story?

People trust Citizens Advice; they feel confident in dealing with the mixture of employees and volunteers that run this vital service. I have spent quite a bit of time with Citizens Advice over the past couple of years and have been hugely impressed with the sympathetic but realistic way in which advisers deal with clients. Many clients have learning difficulties, health troubles, or an inability to grasp the seriousness of their financial problems.

It can take a long time to get an appointment, and some bureaux are turning clients away, but this is only because they have insufficient funding and support. Rather than switching to a different provider, which may cause confusion and the loss of information during the transition, surely it would make better sense to provide the existing.....continued below

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advice network with more money?

The money is there if Hull is anything to go by. Its new Community Legal Advice Centre or 'Clac' will get £3.5m from the LSC and the local authority, whereas they currently give the town's Citizens Advice £696,000.

There should be concerns, too, about switching from a not-for profit provider such as Citizens Advice to one that has to consider its bottom line. Earlier this month, the Universities and Colleges Union claimed that A4e - one of the partners that has won the tender to run the Clac in Hull - had pulled out of a training contract for prisons in Kent a year early because of anticipated losses. A4e denies this, but has not clarified whether it is renegotiating its contract.

Jon Trigg, A4e's business director, has already made clear that his company's involvement with legal aid is not a loss leader. 'What we are not looking to do at any stage is to cross-subsidise any provision from anywhere else,' he said to Legal Action magazine. 'Everything must be able to wash its face.'

Taxpayers' money that is intended to provide advisory services should do just that, not line the pockets of company directors and shareholders.

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