- new £3.1 million grant to enhance free legal advice
and support
- jointly delivered by Ministry of Justice and Access
to Justice Foundation
- major £500,000 investment already awarded to
national projects
In a joint initiative with the Access to Justice
Foundation, funding will be provided to not for profit
organisations across the country to provide free legal
support - ensuring better advice and clear guidance for
those without legal representation in court. Crucially,
alongside helping litigants in person to understand legal
processes and their rights within them, they will also be
provided with practical support throughout the duration
of proceedings.
This is a key milestone in the MOJ’s Legal
Support Action Plan, which is helping people resolve
legal problems at the earliest opportunity.
MOJ has already awarded over £500,000 to national
charities through this grant, delivering:
- an improved helpline that provides practical and
emotional support to clients throughout the court process
- web-based legal advice that enables people on low
incomes to access free legal advice sooner
- an online hub that offers a greater range of
solutions to legal problems, including advice for remote
hearings
Around £270,000 of the grant has been diverted for
emergency support to several organisations providing
vital expert advice to litigants in person, ensuring they
can continue to offer their services during the
coronavirus pandemic.
Justice Minister, said:
This money will improve legal support for those
representing themselves – helping them to navigate the
justice system.
I am delighted to deliver this with our partners at the
Access to Justice Foundation, and look forward to
building similar partnerships to ensure people across
the country have the necessary support.
QC,
Chair of the Access to Justice Foundation, said:
The Foundation is pleased to be working in partnership
with the MOJ to deliver this new funding that will
further improve the experience of vulnerable people
facing the legal process alone.
The new services covered by the national funding stream
will help to ensure that litigants in person have
routes to free or affordable legal advice and that
people in need are able to access the right type of
support, at the right time.
We look forward to continuing our work with the MOJ to
distribute additional grants to support a wide range of
projects at a local and regional level later this year.
Martin Barnes, Chief Executive of LawWorks, said:
We are delighted to receive funding to enable us to
scale up and put on a sustainable basis our new Free
Legal Answers website.
The website will help enable access to initial legal
advice for people on low incomes, supported by a
network of referral organisations and a growing number
of solicitors willing to support people in need through
pro bono volunteering.
Notes to editors
-
Please see our wider Legal Support
Action Plan
-
This new funding, known as the Legal Support for
Litigants in Person programme, is split between
grants for services provided at national, regional
and local levels. Working closely with the charities
delivering them, these different services will be
collectively evaluated to build up our understanding
of how they combine to provide the best support.
- The MOJ and ATJF have already awarded over £500,000
of these grants to a number of larger charities to
provide new national-level services:
- Support Through Court (STC) and RCJ Advice – who
are partnering to expand STC’s national telephone
helpline to include the addition of new family
referral routes into RCJ Advice, as well as piloting
a new remote support initiative.
- LawWorks – who will scale up their Free Legal
Answers website service, which enables people on low
incomes and not eligible for legal aid to access
free, initial legal advice by describing their issue,
or asking direct questions.
- Law for Life – who will add new resources to
their Advicenow website to assist people to deal with
a range of legal problems, as well as creating new
guidance to help individuals appear in the virtual
court effectively. They will also use the new funding
to undertake research to expand understanding of
digital and legal capability.
- Background on the organisations already funded by
Legal Support for Litigants in Person:
- Support Through Court (STC) and RCJ Advice. STC
is a charity dedicated to providing free, independent
assistance and emotional support to people facing
proceedings without legal representation. RCJ Advice
is a unique Citizens Advice service who deliver free
legal advice to people who cannot afford a solicitor
and need assistance with preparing, or dealing with a
Civil or Family court case. RCJ Advice also provide a
range of other specialist services, such as the
Finding Legal Options for Women Survivors (FLOWS)
project
- LawWorks are a charity working in England and
Wales to connect volunteer solicitors with people in
need of legal advice, who are not eligible for legal
aid and cannot afford representation, and with
not-for-profit organisations who can support them.
- Law for Life are a national public legal
education charity. Their Advicenow platform already
provides an online one-stop-shop for anyone
experiencing legal problems in England and Wales. The
website provides instant access to regularly updated
resources from a range of sources, including GOV.uk,
Citizens Advice, Shelter, Mencap, Age UK and
specialist advice organisations.
A further £2 million of funding from the programme will
be awarded to smaller not-for-profit organisations at
regional and local levels in the autumn. Distribution of
this funding has been moved back in order to give those
organisations more time to manage the impacts of the
COVID-19 pandemic and put together proposals.
In the meantime, around £270,000 of the grant programme
has been diverted for emergency support to a number of
organisations providing vital expert advice to litigants
in person, to help them deal with COVID-19 demand.
Through this diverted funding, we have, so far, provided
emergency funding to Citizens Advice Devon, Norfolk
Community Law Services, Citizens Advice Middlesbrough and
Citizens Advice North Lancashire.
This emergency funding is in addition to the MOJ’s £5.4
million cash injection for law centres and other legal
advice charities to help people with housing, debt,
discrimination and employment problems during the
COVID-19 crisis.
The new grant will build on the more than £9 million that
the MOJ has invested in support for litigants in person
in the civil and family courts since 2015, through the
MOJ’s existing Litigants in Person Support Strategy
(LIPSS).
