Law Centres Network Annual Review 2019/20 1 RISING TO A FORMIDABLE 2019/20 CHALLENGE ANNUAL TOGETHER REPORT Law Centres Network Annual Review 2019/20 2 For a just and equal society. A Law Centre is a law practice that is not-for-profit and independent. They employ lawyers and other professionals and offer their core services free of charge. Law Centres want everyone to be able to access justice and focus their work on those least able to do so. This year, the Law Centres movement celebrates 50 years of serving our communities. We are the Law Centres Network, the national membership body for Law Centres. We fight injustice and poverty by supporting Law Centres to maintain, develop and extend their services to people in need. We help them to collaborate with one another and with other organisations. We are also the collective national voice of Law Centres, speaking out for better ways. Together, we use the law and advocacy to bring about much-needed social change. Law Centres Network Annual Review 2019/20 3 CHAIR’S WELCOME To call the past year extraordinary would be an understatement. A year ago, we were consumed with the looming spectre of Brexit, oblivious to the greater and potentially longer-lasting divisions to come. The pandemic’s social rupture nearly 50 years serving its community. all who work with them. I would also accentuates the deep fault lines that We are already working with a local like to thank grant committee members already divided rich and poor. It has group to re-establish a Law Centre who helped us distribute funds efficiently had devastating consequences for service in Brent. and equitably; and our funders, whose Law Centre clients, who were already support and deep understanding of our There have been uplifting events this struggling to find solid ground. work remains vital. year, too. We were delighted to welcome The importance of the Law Centres three new members: Employment and I am also grateful for the continued Network has never been clearer. LCN Equality Law Centre, Public Interest Law support and knowledge of my colleagues is proud to enable and stand with Law Centre and Lewisham Law Centre. In on the Executive Committee and in Centre ‘activist lawyers’ and justice July, the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year particular to vice-chair Sally Causer, who advocates, at a time when some in Awards (LALYs) recognised South West has just stepped down. The Committee’s government use the term disparagingly. London Law Centres as legal aid firm/ combined efforts this year have been Law Centres have really appreciated the not-for-profit agency of the year, and amazing. We are ready for the next ongoing connection with a network of Siobhan Taylor-Ward of Merseyside extraordinary year and all that it brings. like-minded peers, drawing strength Law Centre as legal aid newcomer. from one another. Congratulations to all! Helen Rogers On the first signs of the scale of Later that month, we celebrated Chair of the Executive Covid-19, LCN devised a network the 50th anniversary of the first Committee response plan, more on which below, Law Centre, in North Kensington. covering from Cumbria to the Isle This important milestone and the of Wight, from Suffolk to Northern movement’s anniversary also prompted Ireland. The pandemic also tested our our fundraising campaign, Law for All: digital transformation programme, and Protecting the Life you Live. If you prompted more Law Centres to quickly haven’t yet pledged your support or read move client services onto telephone and our compelling report on the UK justice online. gap, please do so now. Nine months in, we have not lost any It has been a privilege to work with HAVING THE Law Centres but we expect tougher the LCN staff team, who have laboured NETWORK IS times ahead. A poignant reminder from tirelessly on behalf of Law Centres and LIKE HAVING A BIG just before the pandemic was the loss their clients. The impact of this small DUVET AROUND YOU! of Brent Community Law Centre after team continues to impress and influence LAW CENTRE DIRECTOR Law Centres Network Annual Review 2019/20 4 DIRECTOR’S SUMMARY A YEAR IN REVIEW: RESPONDING RAPIDLY TO AN EMERGING CRISIS Our annual review last year was titled Doing Some concern emerged in January, but Justice in Dark Times. Following a strategic we nevertheless held our annual strategic planning meeting in early February. By review, we were looking forward to brighter the end of that month we were revising times for LCN, with ambitious plans for 2020 those plans. By mid-March, the world had changed. We quickly shifted our and the coming 10 years. Little did we know focus accordingly, turning to: how dark it was about to get. 1. Ensuring the financial viability of Law Centres; 2. Supporting Law Centres to continue to provide services; and 3. Responding to issues arising from the pandemic. With this, we started running. A quick LCN HAS RAISED THE BAR… review of each Law Centre’s specific WITH REGARD TO THE situation revealed that half expected SUPPORT GIVEN TO LAW the loss of earned legal aid income to CENTRES AND THE lead to their closure within six months. We immediately initiated a fundraising LEADERSHIP YOU ARE campaign to offset this drop. By June GIVING US – THANK 2020, we had secured £3,250,000 for YOU TO YOU ALL! Law Centres. By the end of October LAW CENTRE DIRECTOR 2020, this increased to over £4m in additional funds for Law Centres. Law Centres Network Annual Review 2019/20 5 DIRECTOR’S SUMMARY CONTINUED Alongside this, we had to address the the first version of a platform that will This year, as the UK nears the end of much more challenging – and changing host all these resources online for Law the Brexit transition period, we also – conditions in which Law Centres work. Centres. concluded three multi-partner projects We have established a system of regular with European citizens and commenced Responding to issues arising from the peer support for all roles at Law Centres, new projects arising from these, pandemic for Law Centres and their together with frequent and tailored particularly focusing on supporting clients has also been a key concern for us. updates on changes and schemes arising vulnerable EU citizens post Brexit and Protecting people in need was a primary from the pandemic. We have assisted assisting them to get Settled Status. issue, be they renters at greater risk of Law Centres to adapt to remote working, home loss; workers facing discrimination It has been intense but LCN staff including by providing them with new in furlough and redundancy processes; team has been buoyed by the equipment; and we have adapted LCN’s or migrants needing to access healthcare acknowledgement, the many thanks own governance procedures to closely and housing. Since the start of the and words of praise from Law Centres, monitor developments. Some made more pandemic, our policy work has been funders and supporters, some of which use of this and some less, but every intense, dividing attention between these you will see throughout this report. I, Law Centre has benefited from these issues and the problems exposed in our too, wish to acknowledge the exceptional initiatives. justice system. These have included the work and commitment of the staff team To review the local-level changes for initial closure of courts and maintaining and LCN’s trustees over this period, and Law Centres, we have now commenced accessibility as they reopened; a legal aid thank each of them sincerely. a 6-month intensive project, that would system that was unprepared for remote I would also like record my public thanks reflect on what we have learnt and provision; and the challenge of retaining – I have already thanked them in private work with Law Centres to support their legal aid providers with a fee system that – to the funders who have quickly adaptations to changing circumstances. only pays for work done, over a long stepped in to assist us: the National Following the review of a previous period during which work could not be Lottery Community Fund, the Legal upheaval, the keenly-felt closure of progressed. Education Foundation, the AB Charitable Lambeth Law Centre, we are also We are pleased that the government has Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, developing a universal set of resources found a way to assist Law Centres with Three Guineas Trust, the Law Society of and training modules that would be grant funding to supplement lost legal aid England and Wales, the law firms listed standard reference for all Law Centres. fees, and that the Justice Committee has later in the report, London Legal Support Law Centres’ turn to remote working agreed that further grants-in-aid would be Trust, Access to Justice Foundation and was significantly assisted by our ongoing needed. We have welcomed opportunities the Community Justice Fund. Particular digital transformation project, which to inform plans for the reopening of thanks go to the Ministry of Justice: continues at pace and has completed courts with HMCTS and through the minister Alex Chalk MP, James Wrigley phase 3 of ICT upgrade and migration Master of the Rolls’ Working Group on and the MoJ team who have secured a to cloud services. There is, however, possession proceedings. Current policy £3m grant for Law Centres. We could much more in progress. We are currently work looks to the future, contributing to not have done it without you. testing an enquiries tool, developing a legal aid sustainability planning and the module for managing human resources, legal aid means test review.