Annual Report 2002/2003
Virginia House
Tel: 01752 519794
Fax: 01752 519795
E mail: information@devonlawcentre.org.uk
Website: www.devonlawcentre.org.uk
Funded by the Legal Services Commission
Devon Law Centre is a company limited by
guarantee
Company number: 432786 Registered charity
number: 1092490
Regulated by the Law Society
A member of the Law Centres Federation
The Law Centre promotes
access to justice and tries to facilitate the awareness and enforcement of legal
rights, particularly targeting the most disadvantaged members of the community.
Contents:
The Management
Committee
Volunteers and
paid staff
Looking back and
looking forward – Will Hay
Something about
money – Chris Taylor
Something more about
money – Roger Haworth
Community Care
and Education – Sharon Lamerton and Miranda Lawrance-Owen
Housing – Ann
Holdsworth
Immigration –
Josephine Meakin
Employment –
Juliet Gordon
Volunteering at
the Law Centre – Kate Oppong
Statistics
Accounts
MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
Mandy Bartlett – Thompson
and Jackson solicitors
David Bick – Torbay Council
(deceased 2002)
Judy Douglas – Plymouth MIND
(resigned March 2003)
Kim Economides –
Michael Halls – Intercom
Trust
Chris Hole – South Hams
Citizens Advice Bureau
Magi Young – Parlett
VOLUNTEERS
Phil Jennings – Adviser
(left February 2003)
PAID STAFF
Zohreh Neirizi – Immigration
Adviser (left April 2002)
LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING
FORWARD – Will Hay, Chair,
The past year consisted of
the usual mix of good and troubling events. First the bad news. It will
surprise few, if any, readers of this address that the issues that caused staff
and members of the management committee most concern were related to finance.
During the year, in line with a number of other advice agencies and allied
organisations, we had to come to terms with a substantial cut in our
budget. The second major issue that
tended to occupy the hearts and minds of both the staff and management
committee members alike revolved around the question of targets. All too frequently
it seems to be the case that people who work in teaching, the law, health,
social work and other like-minded professions are expected to do more and more
within reducing resources. Conditions within the Centre are no exception. The
climate of increasing inflexibility over funding, the tight contractual
arrangements that govern the work undertaken in the Centre, particularly the
setting of daunting targets is now all pervasive. We seemed to have lived with
what many observers see as an adverse and morale sapping situation for so long
now that we tend to take it all for granted. When was it ever thus, as it were.
If this were not all, recent
news has reached me that the Virginia House Settlement complex, within which
the Law Centre is located may shortly be up for sale because of the difficulties
of making ends meet as a direct consequence of the fiscal situation alluded to
above. The Settlement has an iconic status within the social welfare field for
providing services. Not only is its present demise to be deeply regretted for a
host of social, moral and political reasons, we may thus soon be engaging in
the vexed practical process of seeking new premises.
That said it perhaps does
little good to dwell on the negatives. On a much more upbeat note, let me speak
of more positive and fruitful things.
First and foremost, the Centre now plays a notable and central part in
the County, particularly in the
In terms of staffing, it is
with a sense of pride that I am able, hand on heart, to report that staff in
the Centre bring an abundance of ability, experience, energy and a huge amount
of commitment to their work. The work that they undertake is clearly grounded
in the values of the Law Centre movement that celebrates diversity, social
inclusion and the promotion of equality, justice and fairness for all.
Excellent working arrangements have been developed with other advice agencies
and allied organisations in and around the South-West peninsula. In addition to
providing advice on immigration and housing, the Centre is particularly
fortunate to be able to advise clients on issues related to community care and
education. These are emergent areas of law, the importance of which is only
recently becoming apparent and appreciated.
In terms of the work of the
management committee, each of the members brings a corresponding wealth of insight,
skill, commitment and experience. As a result meetings are always focused,
efficient and productive. The committee, as a whole, has worked well as a team
throughout the year. My thanks to all of you for making my job that much
easier.
Turning now to the future,
it is clear that there are some interesting and challenging times ahead.
Certainly there is no room for complacency. In the grand scale of things, we
need to pay close attention to a number of priorities, many of which are
substantial. Certainly we need to expand the service beyond the boundaries of
Second, we need, as always,
to pay systematic attention to the needs of staff. Of special importance is to
continue to value their contribution to the work of the centre by providing
regular supervision, support and to meet their training and developmental needs
and requirements. Third, there is the ever-present and continual need to liaise
and closely work with other agencies to identify the local and specific needs
of the communities that the Centre serves. In this way, the problems associated
with deprivation and disadvantage can be tackled in a planned and co-ordinated
way. Fourth, it is apparent that the Centre, like other agencies in the not for
profit sector, cannot function effectively and efficiently without the support
of volunteers. Whilst the Centre benefits greatly from the services of some
very able and highly committed volunteers, it remains the case that the recruitment
and retention of volunteers should be a priority for the forthcoming year.
Finally, from the base from
which they started, there can be little doubt that the Centre is on the up and
up in terms of what the staff are likely to achieve for the clients that they
serve. More than anything else, it gives me great pleasure to be able to bring
this good news to you.
SOMETHING
MORE ABOUT MONEY – Roger Haworth, Practice Manager.
Devon Law Centre was set up by
the Law Centres Federation in the summer of 2001 with the help of contract
funding from the Legal Services Commission. Unlike other Law Centres no local
authority core funding was secured prior to the opening of the Centre.
The Commission had agreed to
fund four full time equivalent lawyer/adviser posts – two immigration workers,
a housing worker and a fourth worker to do other categories of social welfare
law in our case education and community care. The Law Centres Federation’s plan
was to use the economies of scale of such a large contract to fund a fifth full
time post, that of practice manager and thus by necessity not employ the two
full time admin workers who would normally be employed to support the lawyers
and advisers working on a contract of this size.
The Commission’s expectation
was that we should operate at full capacity from day one,
As a new organisation we had
nothing when we started. During the next 10 months, while still part of the Law
Centres Federation, we acquired paid staff, volunteers, furniture, computers,
phones, books, waiting and interview rooms and all the other things you need
for a Law Centre.
We also acquired clients,
but this was a slow process as we started out with no track record or
reputation and there was no local understanding as to what a Law Centre is or
what to expect from one.
On
Following the resignation of
our immigration adviser
This left us with funding
for three full time equivalent posts, while we had four full time equivalents actually
working. We had lost the economies of scale which appeared to make the Law
Centre a viable financial proposition at the outset. Following representations
the Commission awarded us a further £6,000 to tide us over for the remainder of
2002/3!
We had pinned much hope on
our application to the Community Fund (formerly the National Lottery Charities
Board) for a grant to employ three full time staff for three years. This would
have given the Law Centre the opportunity to do work for clients financially
ineligible for Legal Help, to do work which falls outside the scope of the
Access to Justice Act such as employment tribunal representation, to have full
time paid administrative support and to do social policy research and
campaigning. Unfortunately the application was unsuccessful.
We also made funding
applications to the LSC to provide a national consultancy line for community
care law and on two occasions for grants to employ trainee solicitors. All
three of these applications were unsuccessful.
During the period June to
November 2002 the Commission monitored the performance of not for profit
agencies with contracts. During that period we did 89.6% of the contract hours
expected of us. As a result we have now had our funding for 2003/4 reduced by £17,000
plus vat, amounting to a further 11% cut. There is a further cut as well which
has been imposed on all not for profit agencies with LSC contracts which pay
their staff on local authority pay scales. The LSC funding figures for the
coming year are linked to these pay scales at the level they were in March
2002. Since then there have been three separate increases to these scales
amounting in total to about £11,800 or 7.6%. We are contractually obliged to
pay these increases to our staff.
Consequently we are entering
the current year with our contract funding reduced from £173,000 plus vat to
£138,000 plus vat, a total cut of 20% to add to the 25% cut in March 2002.
The Legal Services
Commission have introduced a new contract for not for profit advice agencies
which came into force on 1st April 2003. This contract is quite
prescriptive about what time spent on cases can or cannot be claimed as
contract time. For example if you receive a letter and send out a
straightforward reply you can claim 6 minutes! Also in the new contract is the
provision for Contract Compliance Audit. These audits have been done in the for
profit sector for a while – hence the droves of solicitor firms withdrawing
from legal aid work!
The idea is that Commission
staff will come and read a random selection of our files to see if the time we
have claimed while working on them can be justified by the way we have
described the work we have done in the attendance notes and other documentation
on the file. If they decide for example we could not justify 20% of the work we
had claimed for in the sample of cases they read they would then reduce our
overall contract funding by 20%. The Commission undertook an “educational”
Contract Compliance Audit of our files on 4th and 5th
June 2003. Two auditors read twenty of our files over the two days. They found
that 36% of the time we had claimed on that sample of files was classed as
administrative work or other work which fell outside that which was allowed
under the contract.
They plan a further audit in
December 2003 and on this occasion if they find that we have claimed for time
not allowed under the contract they can make further funding cuts.
It is now quite clear that
unless the Law Centre can obtain funding to employ at least two full time administrators/personal
assistants it will not be possible for us to meet our commitments to the
funders in terms of time recording.
For the Law Centre to
continue we need the support of not only the Legal services Commission but also
our local authorities. We are currently preparing a bid to all 11 Devon local
authorities for funding to support our core management, administrative and
running costs.
However all is not doom and
gloom. It has been a great privilege to have been instrumental in setting up
the Devon Law Centre. I would like to thank all our staff both voluntary and
paid for their marvellous commitment to the Law Centre and for all their
excellent work over the course of the year. I cannot imagine having better or
more supportive colleagues
I would also like to thank
all the members of our management committee who have taken on the
responsibility for running the Law Centre with assurance and style! It is
important to remember that they are all volunteers.
COMMUNITY CARE AND EDUCATION
– Sharon Lamerton, Legal Executive
Community Care
Community Care is still very
busy. Most of our clients are still concentrated
in and around Plymouth but we have clients spread throughout the area including
Barnstaple, Cullompton/Tiverton, South Hams, and Tavistock. We also
have a few clients in South East Cornwall.
Most of our clients have
problems with Social Services; either because they have difficulty getting any
help or most commonly because although an assessment of need has been done it
does not deal with all the client’s problems.
Many assessments and care plans are not specific enough, which causes
great frustration. We are able to help
by corresponding with Social Services on the Client’s behalf and sometimes by
attending meetings or care planning conferences with them. We currently have three cases which are
likely proceed to Judicial Review in the High Court. Two result from a failure to provide for
assessed needs and one relating to a failure to make an adequate assessment.
Sharon runs a “clinic” at
Plymouth MIND once a month and we do attend occasional events related to the
community care field organised by various organisations throughout the
region. However pressure to achieve LSC
hours and lack of alternative funding has meant that our ability to do much
other outreach work is very limited. There is also related public policy work
which we would love to address, but cannot do so at the moment.
Education
The Education work has
increased enormously in the first few months of 2003, to the extent that we had
to turn away new clients for a few weeks due to pressure of work. This is very difficult as there is only one
other education specialist in the whole of
We have clients throughout
Much of our work relates to
permanent exclusions from school, which seem to arise because schools do not
follow guidance relating to the management of behaviour problems, especially of
children with special needs, prior to exclusion. We help clients prepare cases for appeals to
governors and Independent Appeal Tribunals.
Most of the rest of the work concerns bullying problems, school
admissions and school attendance problems, plus a few post sixteen funding
queries. We are gradually getting more
Special Educational Needs cases, two of which involved Tribunal Appeals, and
there are clearly a lot of problems in the area. In particular there is a serious lack of
facilities for post sixteen S.E.N education in the
area as a whole, with many students being inappropriately referred to local
further education colleges.
HOUSING –
Ann Holdsworth, Solicitor.
Over
the second year of the Law Centre’s operation the Housing caseload has continued
to expand and broaden, for example possession cases have varied from large
numbers of eviction warrant suspensions to one Court of Appeal case dealing
with the right to prevent eviction once an outright possession order has been
made. In addition we have undertaken disrepair cases, Homeless Reviews and
Appeals, transfer applications and provided advice and assistance in respect of
a number of other matters. The majority of our clients live in
At
the end of 2001 we set up in conjunction with Shelter and Solicitor firms a
Duty scheme at Plymouth County Court to advise and represent tenants threatened
with eviction. We continue to coordinate and represent on the scheme which has
been successful in resolving issues such as housing benefit and in preventing
homelessness in the City.
As
with my colleagues, the ability to undertake social policy and development work
has been frustrated by the Centre’s funding constraints.
Despite
this we have achieved a number of successes over the last year and here are a
few examples:
Eviction
Miss
W’s Council landlord applied to evict her due to rent arrears totalling £2482.
The Council advised that she had no chance of stopping the eviction. The tenant
had found it hard to pay the rent on her wages of £4.10 per hour; when she
subsequently lost her job and applied for housing benefit her forms were lost.
She was suffering from depression. We represented Miss W at Court and despite
stiff opposition from the Council secured an adjournment to pursue a backdating
of housing benefit appeal. We obtained evidence to support the appeal which led
to an award of £1600 backdated benefit being awarded, substantially reducing
the arrears. The tenant agreed to make regular payments towards the remaining
arrears which led to the Council subsequently agreeing to suspend the eviction.
Disrepair
Mr
S is a tenant of Council rented accommodation where he lives with his disabled
wife and their three children. The Council visited to mend the broken disabled
shower but this resulted in leaking water and asbestos being smashed causing
the house to be uninhabitable. The family had to move out of their home for 3
months, living in cramped and difficult conditions whilst the repairs were
completed and the asbestos remains removed. We pursued the Council for
compensation for their negligence and settled the case on them paying our
client £1350 compensation plus our costs.
Homelessness
Miss
B was a very vulnerable 17 year old who was forced to leave her family home due
to abuse. She applied to her District Council for housing and they refused to
accept that she was in priority need. We requested a Review of that decision
which was subsequently changed. The Council offered Bed and Breakfast
accommodation to the young person. We challenged that offer as being unsuitable
for our client’s needs and pursued the case by way of an appeal to the County
Court. At the Court hearing the Council agreed to provide our client with a
permanent tenancy.
IMMIGRATION – Josephine
Meakin, Immigration Adviser
Events at the beginning of
the year had quite an impact on the service provided to those seeking immigration
advice from the Devon Law Centre.
The Legal Services
Commission seized the opportunity to cut funding and announced that they would
not continue to fund our second immigration post. This decision seemed harsh given that the
Devon Law Centre had been open just 10 months and had shown a steady increase
in the numbers of new clients and advice hours recorded.
The assistance of volunteer
immigration advisers has since been invaluable in increasing the recorded hours
for immigration advice although the high level of administrative tasks
associated with immigration advice makes it difficult to achieve targets set by
our funders.
Throughout the year, the
Devon Law Centre has endeavoured to provide a wide range of immigration advice
for people wishing to stay in the
The Devon Law Centre
represents a number of asylum seekers from various parts of the world where
they have experienced persecution and ill treatment. Most of these clients have been dispersed to
There has been considerable
success assisting clients with non-asylum immigration applications, including
spouses and students as well as assisting clients obtain entry clearance for
relatives abroad. Notably one family was
faced with removal from the
The main area of difficulty
lies with the lengthy delays on decision making at the Home Office both for
asylum applications lodged before April 2001 and non-asylum immigration
applications and there seems little likelihood that the situation will change.
It can also be difficult to
provide an immediate service to clients given the difficulty in arranging appropriate
interpreters although the Devon Law Centre is currently negotiating with a
provider of telephone interpreter services to overcome this.
The Devon Law Centre has
provided support to Citizens Advice Bureaux in
If additional funding
becomes available it is hoped that the Devon Law Centre will be able to develop
social policy work to assist our clients in
EMPLOYMENT – Juliet Gordon,
Volunteer Adviser
The Law Centre took its
first employment clients in February 2002. The employment team is made up of
three volunteers - Juliet Gordon, who joined in January 2002, Alex Fell, who joined in August 2002 and Jamie Macpherson, who
joined in October 2002. We are grateful too for the assistance of
From its inception the employment department has
grown in terms of resources, chargeable hours worked, links to community and
other not for profit organisations and number of clients helped.
Our work has included:
-
Unfair dismissal
-
Discrimination – sex, race and
disability
-
Age discrimination
-
Take-overs and transfer of undertakings
-
Redundancy
-
Interpretation of the employment
contract
-
Insolvent employers
-
Minimum wage rules
-
Employment tribunal
representation
-
Parental leave
-
Pension rights
-
Industrial injuries disablement
benefits
-
Who has employee status
-
Advice on application to
Employment Appeal Tribunal
-
Advice on application to
-
Wages Act claims
-
Health and safety
In line with
Law Centre policy, we do not act for employers.
We have
advised a significant number of clients at level 1, giving them 35 minutes free
advice regardless of financial eligibility. Of the clients who progressed
beyond this, for those in work, our work has involved negotiation with
employers or advice about contractual rights or internal disciplinary
procedures. Of the clients who are no longer in work, the majority have
eventually instructed us to issue an Employment Tribunal application on their
behalf and, barring a few, who withdrew their applications, we have succeeded
in negotiating a financial settlement satisfactory to our clients.
We advise
our clients under the Legal Help scheme. This does not cover representation at
Employment Tribunal hearings but, because we are volunteers, we have been able
to offer some representation.
With just
three part time volunteers staffing the department, there are inevitably times
when we do not have the capacity to take on new clients. Even if we cannot deal
fully with a telephone enquiry or personal call to our offices, we do manage to
always have a brief chat, identify the nature of the problem and signpost the
enquirer to other providers as appropriate.
We do keep
our skills updated and are aware that it is predicted that the need for
employment advice generally is set to increase dramatically in the near future.
This is a result firstly of the rise in people seeking advice under
recently and relatively recently
implemented legislation and, as time goes on, more people become aware of their
rights such as under the Disability Discrimination Act, parental leave, paternity pay or new holiday
pay rules. The bulk of the predicted increase in people seeking employment
advice however will result from the Employment Act 2002, which has recently
come into force. We expect our own share of the rise in numbers of people
seeking employment advice.
We fear that
our casework reveals what could be described as the tip of the iceberg when it
comes to poor employment practice.
Whilst not
overlooking the persuasive or punitive effects of the employment tribunals and
our own valuable case work, we believe a future role of Law Centre might be to
help the local workers who do not seek our advice by the promotion of a culture
of good employment practice through the dissemination of employment information
to both employers and employees in our area. This could also include support
for unions in their recruitment campaigns and research into employment
practices locally as well as campaigning for legislative change.
VOLUNTEERING AT THE LAW CENTRE – Kate Oppong, Volunteer Adviser
I offered my services for volunteering at the Law Centre about 18 months ago. With a background in law and adviser at a Citizens Advice Bureau it seemed a good place to consolidate my training and gain valuable experience. I started off by doing one day a week assisting the housing solicitor mainly doing research. Within a couple of months, I had my own caseload mainly defending possession proceedings. I therefore increased my days to 2 days a week. After about 7 months, I was given the opportunity to do some asylum casework training with ILPA. After the training, I "plunged" straight into doing asylum casework again operating my own caseload. I have conducted an asylum case from a claim through to an appeal. I have had the opportunity to interview clients, negotiate on behalf of clients and represent them in court.
The opportunities for training in both fields of work have been excellent both in house and external. All expenses incurred relevant to training and work are reimbursed.
The posts of the paid staff are self servicing and I have also gained experience in administration and computer skills
Volunteering at the Law Centre has given me valuable experience. I have been given the responsibility of conducting my own caseload which has given me confidence. Staff are however, always on hand to give you the support and supervision required.
I find the work rewarding for 2 reasons. I gain satisfaction in assisting clients with the issues they bring in and it is also rewarding to know that the work I do contributes equally to the contract hours for the franchise.
Having a caseload demands a commitment and responsibility to ensure that work is done not only to a required standard but also that a commitment in time is given to ensure that the work is done satisfactorily and within a reasonable time. However, as a volunteer, you commit yourself to the amount of time that you can give and take on the amount of work that you feel you can do to a satisfactory standard.
There are at present 4 volunteer advisers in the different areas of law and the atmosphere in the office is friendly and inclusive.
I would recommend volunteering here to any adviser because apart from the experience you gain, you know that your work is valued as much as a paid staff member.
STATISTICS
FOR THE PERIOD 1.4.02 to 31.3.03
LEGAL
HELP
|
Category
of Law |
Cases
opened |
Cases
closed |
Cases
open on 31.3.03 |
Hours
worked on the cases |
LSC
target hours |
%
of target hours done |
|
Community
Care |
46 |
22 |
60 |
535.2 |
678.0 |
78.9% |
|
Education |
31 |
14 |
29 |
310.9 |
452.0 |
68.8% |
|
Housing |
172 |
138 |
78 |
915.6 |
1130.0 |
81.0% |
|
Immigration |
120 |
73 |
93 |
874.9 |
1130.0 |
77.4% |
|
Other
categories |
35 |
14 |
25 |
280.8 |
0 |
0% |
|
Totals |
404 |
261 |
285 |
2717.4 |
3390.0 |
86.1% |
377.2
Legal Help hours were done by volunteer lawyers and advisers, this being 13.9%
of the total.
PUBLICLY
FUNDED LEGAL REPRESENTATION
|
Category
of Law |
Cases
opened |
Cases
closed |
Cases
open on 31.3.03 |
Hours
worked on the cases |
|
Community
Care |
2 |
0 |
2 |
15.5 |
|
Education |
0 |
1 |
0 |
38.3 |
|
Housing |
4 |
6 |
3 |
156.2 |
|
Totals |
6 |
7 |
5 |
210.0 |
WHERE DID THE CASES COME FROM
?
Legal Help cases opened
between 1.9.02 and 31.3.03
|
Area |
Number of cases |
% of cases |