60 advice jobs lost in Wales due to legal aid cuts

BBC Wales reporting that at least 60 jobs in the advice sector across Wales will be lost because of changes to Legal Aid. Jackie Preston runs the Swansea Neath Port Talbot Citizens’ Advice Bureau which gets a quarter of its funding from Legal Aid to provide help and representation covering welfare and debt for people on benefits or low incomes. “For people that aren’t able to manage their own affairs themselves, or if it’s something quite complex in the terms of the law, then we have workers that are funded by the Legal Aid contract,” she said. “They assist people that are going to tribunal, help them to prepare evidence around welfare benefits.”

In Wales that will mean the loss of at least 60 specialist advisor posts in Citizens’ Advice Bureaux and other independent advice providers like Shelter Cymru which currently provide assistance in more than 18,000 cases a year, mostly in the field of welfare, debt and housing. The Riverside Advice Centre in Cardiff receives half of its funding from legal aid contracts that are not being renewed. In April alone it will see 10 posts disappear. Chief executive Barbara Kerridge is worried about the timing of the changes which she says comes as people’s benefit is to be re-assessed as well as welfare rights funding being “cut drastically. There will be more demand, with less services, particularly for the vulnerable people who aren’t able to help themselves,” she said.

Lord McNally said the Ministry of Justice is “confident” that its reforms will not mean people in Wales having further to travel to access legal aid services and that the Welsh government has been given extra funding to support the advice sector as it adapts to the system of funding.

For the whole story, see Legal aid cuts hit 60 advice jobs and ‘vulnerable’ in Wales