Eight Shelter offices across England could close

Eight offices run by homeless charity Shelter could shut due to government cuts in legal aid funding, it is reported on the BBC website. The affected offices are Ashford, Cheshire, Cumbria, Gloucester, Hertfordshire, Milton Keynes, Rotherham and Somerset.

Shelter said the cuts would mean a 50% reduction to its face-to-face advice services and possible office closures. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said legal aid was not always necessary and practical help could be more useful.

Shelter is now holding an internal consultation over the future of the eight offices. The consultation is due to end on 7 Ocotober and the final decision is set to be made on 16 October.

For the whole story, see Eight Shelter offices across England could close

Inside Housing report that Shelter is being forced to press ahead with closing 10 of its housing advice offices in England because of legal aid cuts. They say that the organisation expects this could mean up to 100 redundancies but said it was ‘doing everything we can to keep the numbers as low as possible’.

Legal aid cuts will mean a 50 per cent reduction in funding for the charity’s face-to-face advice services. Campbell Robb, Shelter’s chief executive, said:  ‘This is a result of the huge cuts to legal aid in England, which we campaigned vigorously against. The cuts have meant some difficult decisions about how we best use the resources we have to help those in housing need. While service closures are absolutely a last resort, we simply cannot fill the gap created by the scale of these cuts with other sources.’

For the whole article, see Shelter forced to close advice offices

more from the guardian -

‘Cuts to legal aid are forcing the closure of almost a third of Shelter’s housing advice centres ...

The decision to close down nine Shelter offices across England this month, with the loss of 80 to 100 jobs, is blamed on the withdrawal of funding for legal advice and representation for routine housing claims from 1 April this year.’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/mar/11/legal-aid-cuts-shelter-offices