Authors:LAG
Created:2013-11-01
Last updated:2023-09-18
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Administrator
 
Manchester advice cuts
This column documents evidence of the effect of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012. Readers are invited to send in relevant information for publication. E-mail: vwilliams@lag.org.uk using the message title ‘Legal aid cuts impact statement’.
Manchester Citizens Advice Bureau was successful in securing the contract for the Community Legal Advice Service (CLAS), which opened in October 2010 and closed in April this year. The CLAS tender consolidated legal aid and council funding for advice services into one contract and led to reduced capacity among the Law Centres® and other advice providers which were unsuccessful in bidding for the contract. The competitive tendering process that was used to select the successful CLAS provider was described as ‘hugely divisive’ by many in the city’s not for profit (NFP) sector.
Early in 2011, Manchester City Council announced the closure of its in-house service, Manchester Advice, which mainly dealt with welfare benefits, debt and housing cases. The council insisted that this was unrelated to the establishment of the CLAS and was part of its cuts programme to balance the budget. A smaller scale in-house service, focusing on appeals and supporting disabled people, was retained by the council.
The closure of Manchester Advice cut £1.7m from the budget for advice services in the city. Around 100 advice services jobs were lost. The service had dealt with 80,000–100,000 enquiries a year. Recently, a council employee told LAG: ‘With the closure of Manchester Advice, 50 per cent of advice capacity in the city went overnight.’
From 1 April 2013, Manchester Citizens Advice Bureau lost £800,000 in legal aid income, due to the LASPO Act scope cuts. It has secured some new contracts for housing work and the bureau bid successfully for one of the contracts for the telephone advice service run by Citizens Advice nationally. In Manchester, the combination of legal aid and local council cuts has severely reduced the city’s specialist advice services.