Sir Geoffrey Bindman in battle to keep free legal advice
Lawyer knight lambasts plans to cut Law Centre funding
Published: 2 September, 2010
by DAN CARRIER
LEADING legal figures have condemned plans to cut services at a community law centre.
The Camden Community Law Centre in Prince of Wales Road, Kentish Town, was told last month by the Legal Services Commission (LSC) that they will lose a minimum 25 per cent of their income and no longer be able to offer free advice on housing, benefits and debt.
Under new LSC criteria, solicitors have their work audited before legal aid is distributed among providers. It means some have lost funding as budgets have been squeezed by central government.
Now lawyers including Sir Geoffrey Bindman, who established the centre in 1973, have spoken of their fears that the changes will hit the borough’s most vulnerable people.
Sir Geoffrey told the New Journal: “It is a disaster for the law centre and for people living in Camden.”
As a solicitor and Labour councillor in the early 1970s, Sir Geoffrey, whose firm is based in Gray’s Inn Road, recognised the need for free legal advice.
He said: “If anything, the need has become greater today for the services they provide. People with housing problems and social welfare problems will have nowhere else to go to get legal advice.
“There are all sorts of problems people are going to have because of these changes.
“They will not know what they are entitled to.”
Sir Geoffrey said that government changes to social and welfare policy and swingeing spending cuts elsewhere would mean advice was needed more than ever. And his views were echoed by housing solicitor Robert Latham.
“The simplistic tick-box exercise adopted by the LSC in awarding contracts for the provision of legal services has resulted in outcomes which are utterly absurd and wholly irrational,” said Mr Latham.
“Camden Law Centre has provided a vital community resource since 1973.
“No one has questioned the quality of the service that it provides. Indeed the LSC have awarded the Law Centre contracts for immigration, employment and public law.
“The decision is a nonsense as the Law Centre receives more than half its funding from the council.
“It is therefore able to provide a much more extensive service for those needing advice on housing, welfare benefits and debt.
“To withdraw part of its funding further prevents the Law Centre from providing a one-stop shop to clients facing a cluster of problems.
“If the LSC does not reverse this decision on appeal, it is likely to be overturned by the courts.”
A spokesman for the Legal Services Commission said: “Each of the tenders was carried out openly and transparently. This was not a price-based tender.
“The focus throughout has been on obtaining quality assured advice where clients need it.”
No date has been set for the outcome of the centre’s appeal against the cuts.