Letter received from LSC North Wales office today.

Inclues following " As a consequence of finalising the CLS strategy.....the decision has been taken to withdraw the support that has previously been provided to CLSP`s in Wales.
The Commission would encourage those...partnerships that wish to, to continue to meet.....However, the Commission will no longer be represented as a member...and is unable to offer any further support."

Unaware of what may happen in England.

AFAIK, in England, the position is the same, i.e. the LSC will not be providing any kind of support to those CLSPs that remain in operation, beyond words of encouragement. Certainly in London, this had already been scaled down quite dramatically already but at a recent Regional Partnership meeting, we were told that there will be no resources or attendance from LSC at all in future.

Not entirely sure what this will mean for existing CLSPs but would imagine that unless they can find/maintain local authority support, they will slowly wither away.

Hi Damian

Re: Life after the CLSp

We had a CLSp meeting in March and were advised by the LSC that they were very likely to be withdrawing from the partnership - so the letter from Bob has come as no surprise.

We are now considering the best way forward for the Flintshire CLSp. It is being mentioned that we could become a CLAN (Community Legal Advice Network). But as the Flintshire CLSp was born from the Flintshire Advisors Forum (the same group just given a different name)it will not matter what we are called we will continue to exist and keep the need for effective social welfare advice high up on the agenda of the numerous other partnerships and strategies that are in operation in Flintshire.