The Citizens Advice service helps people resolve their legal, money and other problems by providing free, independent and confidential advice, and by influencing policymakers.

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Home Remedies

01-04-2004

Home Remedies ( 230kb) - The challenges facing publicly funded housing advice

Introduction

1. Affordable housing, homelessness and the housing shortage are major issues of public debate. This paper looks at access to housing advice as an important dimension of these issues, it covers the following:

• The background to the Community Legal Service
• The Infrastructure of Housing Advice
• The need for advice and homelessness prevention
• Advice provision and social inclusion
• Advice deserts - the regional picture
• Lack of provision - the human cost
• Matching supply and demand
• Toward a solution

2. This paper on publicly funded legal advice for housing problems is one of a series produced by Citizens Advice to contribute to the debate on the future of the Community Legal Service, and publicly funded legal advice more generally. The paper reviews the background to the debate, sets out the extent of the problem of access to housing advice, assesses the human cost of advice deserts, and considers the consequences of inaction and permitting the continuous cycle of real deprivation. It argues that effective advice services are essential for tackling homelessness and suggests a number of questions to be considered during the next stages of the debate.

3. This report comes as the Department for Constitutional Affairs is reviewing the operation of the Community Legal Service (CLS). The Law Society has also recently issued its new policy on the development of the publicly funded sector¹. And a wide-ranging independent review led by David Clementi of "regulation of the legal service market aimed at promoting competition and innovation and improving services for the customer"² has been commissioned by Lord Falconer, Constitutional Affairs Secretary. There is new research from the user perspective too - the Legal Services Research Centre has published the full results of the first ever national Legal Need Survey which points to shocking levels of unmet advice needs.

¹ Promoting Rights, Tackling Social Exclusion Law Society, February 2003

² Review of the regulatory framework for legal services in England and Wales, launched October 2003, www.dca.gov.uk

Social Policy contact: James Sandbach Social.policy@citizensadvice.org.uk

Home Remedies ( 230kb) - The challenges facing publicly funded housing advice

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