August 2018

Strategic Review of LCN

Grant: £54,890
August 28, 2018

LCN will partner with Social Finance to undertake a full strategic review of LCN and its operations. This will focus on improving the sustainability of LCN, through identification and strategic analysis of products and services LCN offers and could offer in the future. This will include analysing sources of income, potential size of and routes to access income, as well as sources of costs and potential ways to improve efficiencies. The review will include assessing the skills and organisational structure of LCN necessary to implement its recommendations.

This work will feed into a three year strategic plan and a high-level 10 year strategic vision for LCN. We will also provide a network pricing tool for member law centres, to allow them to improve their charging structures for fee-earning work.

Use of the law by voluntary Organisations Phase 3

Grant: £200,000
August 23, 2018

Strengthening the Voluntary Sector (STVS) is a well-known and highly regarded grants programme in the sector. The focus chosen for the new five-year programme is building on a belief that better use of the law presents opportunities for parts of the voluntary sector to enhance their ability to pursue their charitable purpose. In turn, better use of the law by the voluntary sector will help to amplify the law’s everyday relevance by situating it within a wider framework advocacy and social change. It also offers opportunities to unlock new sources of financial and other support for legal-related activity and to widen ownership and defence of the law at a time when it is under pressure.

Technology enabled access to justice and lean legal services – a vision for Scotland

Grant: £8,000
August 16, 2018

This project is a scoping exercise to identify the Information, Communication and Technology developments needed to:

• Become a fully digital organisation
• Optimise limited resources through clever use of ICT
• Extend the organisations reach through the application of technology to enable legal assistance, advice and representation to be supported in the smaller towns and “Legal Deserts” found in the rural and remote areas of Scotland.
• Provide a platform to enable the delivery of a wider range of legal services

The Legal Need Project for Wales

Grant: £78,719
August 1, 2018

A large part of the Commissions work will be establishing what the current position in legal provision is, identifying the key issues, and then making recommendations. In terms of access to justice issues there are some fundamental questions which need to be answered. These questions have been summarised as follows:

1. What are the legal needs in Wales? Can these needs be quantified?
2. To what extent are legal needs being met by current provision?
3. How do legal needs, and the extent to which they are being met, compare regionally in Wales?

Without understanding the scale of legal need in Wales, it will not be possible make informed recommendations on how this need can be met.