The legal advice sector has long since suffered from a difficult relationship with local authority support, says Jon Robins
Over the last four decades, Hackney Community Law Centre has enjoyed a pretty good relationship with its council. That changed last month after its cabinet voted through a swingeing 45% cut in its £203,000 grant. This follows last year’s cut of £60,000 to its debt advice service.
As Steve Hynes notes elsewhere in this issue, 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the legal aid scheme. Hackney Community Law Centre’s manager Sean Canning points out that publicly funded legal advice is ‘the fourth pillar of the welfare state’. ‘We are deeply shocked and puzzled that this council should be hitting today’s custodians of that achievement of access to justice for the poor and vulnerable,’ he says.
Hackney Council’s advice services budget of £770,000 has been ringfenced. Speaking on behalf of the law centre’s trustees, councillor Deniz Oguzkanli notes that, although austerity has hit all of the borough’s services, this was ‘a deliberate and unconsulted upon’ change in how the council distributes money.
