Vision

Our vision is of a society that is just and fair.

Mission

Our mission is to support communities to use the law to improve their lives and the lives of others.

Values

Our values are:

Trust – We trust and value our partners’ and colleagues’ lived and learned experience. We work to be trusted by being open and honest, and acting with integrity.

Solidarity – We stand with those taking action to bring about collective benefit. We commit ourselves and our resources to building relationships over the long term that centre wellbeing, accelerate change and make others’ voices heard.

Inclusion – We work to be representative of and accountable to the communities we work with. We challenge systems and structures, including our own, that create and perpetuate oppression, discrimination, inequity and exclusion.

Courage – We are not afraid to challenge injustice.

Reflection – We take seriously the complexity of the issues we are tackling and the importance of learning from communities that are affected. We build a culture in which we are dedicated to reflecting and acting on our learning.

Context

The UK justice system is undergoing a period of challenge and rapid change which has far-reaching consequences for people’s ability to understand and use the law. There has been chronic under-resourcing of legal organisations at the same time as legal needs have risen. Sustainable employment, career development and access to the profession have all come under pressure. Meanwhile, legal and constitutional changes brought about by the UK’s exit from the EU, along with the increasing adoption of digital technology and automated data processing by government, are producing fundamental changes to UK institutions and the exercise of public power.

This matters particularly for the significant numbers of people who cannot obtain justice in relation to their fundamental rights. We know that these unmet needs trigger or exacerbate cluster of problems that have significant impacts on individuals, communities and wider public policy goals.

Legal education sits at the heart of activities to ensure law plays its role effectively: It is how people can be helped to know and access legal remedies; it is how people and organisations working in the law can improve the ways they identify and resolve legal needs; and the study and analysis of evidence arising out of this activity can positively influence wider policy and justice systems.

Organisations tackling these challenges have experienced significant constraints that have affected their ability to deliver services at the scale needed, to invest in their infrastructure, to develop related fields of policy, research and communications and to attract and retain skilled staff. These organisations face a task of such scale and complexity that significant and sustained strategic investment is needed to help them play their roles. The Foundation’s resources put us in a position to support organisations to address this challenge.

We support work in all four nations of the UK, recognising the need to reflect local needs and differences, including the different legal jurisdictions and devolved powers. The focus of our work is in the UK, but we also look to learn from and to inform international practice and experience.

Our work to 2025 will be divided into three programmes:

Lessons from our first strategic plan

Our strategic plan takes forward lessons from our first phase of activity between 2015 and 2020.