Increase Public Understanding

FixMyBlock: An advice and reporting system for tower block residents

Grant: £46,315
November 14, 2018

Tower blocks are subject to a range of safety and maintenance issues, which, if not identified and dealt with properly and at an early stage, can potentially be life-threatening.

Residents must be at the heart of the system for managing and improving the safety of tower blocks – yet they are often unaware of their legal rights, and lack the capacity and resources to exercise these rights and make their voices heard.

To address this, mySociety and Shift Design will collaborate with the Tower Blocks UK project to build a new online service, adapted from mySociety’s FixMyStreet platform, that will:

• Provide information to residents on their rights and the law.
• Enable residents to report issues directly to the property manager (including safety, maintenance and repair issues).
• Provide advice on how to take further action should the issues not be resolved.

RIPPLE roll out – Phase 1

Grant: £74,000
November 14, 2018

RIPPLE (2016/18) pioneered a new approach to public legal education, rooted in and informed by casework practice. It showed the power of connecting knowledge transfer to experience and created opportunities for identification of systemic issues with potential wider benefit.

RIPPLE focused on the law relating to health and social care, working with groups of people in similar situations.

This project will extend the RIPPLE approach across all of its health and community care work and begin to explore what can be achieved within communities with a legal practice working in this way. This project is Phase 1 - essential groundwork to support the proposed roll out.

Virtual Partnership Law Centre

Grant: £49,870
September 5, 2018

GLC will provide legal services for a remote area of Scotland. It will invest in broadband, computers with Skype, camera/microphone, in private confidential areas in offices and secure scanning to safely upload documents. The aim is to make legal services accessible anywhere in Argyll and Bute Council (A&BC) that has a private room and computer with camera connected to broadband. Skype client appointments will be booked in the same way as other clients, with a solicitor ‘meeting’ a Skype client in a local meeting room.

Reach Advocacy will train and support four people in A&BC to become citizen advocates, who will provide local support to Skype clients. Reach Advocacy are a Scottish Qualifications Authority approved training centre who provide support to individuals, families, carers and communities affected by drugs, alcohol and mental health problems.

Virtual Law Clinic

Grant: £39,200
July 19, 2018

The Virtual Law Clinic project uses Skype technology and pro bono support to offer free advice to individuals in ‘advice deserts’ areas where vulnerable people are unable to access a Law Centre.

Clients are supported by a volunteer working under supervision at a Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) in North Somerset or Somerset. The project has attracted a lot of regional and national attention and a number of CAB offices have contacted us to see if the project could be expanded.

The project currently provides legal advice in the areas of employment law and family law however it is planned to expand the model to include civil litigation and immigration.

Online Reasonable Adjustments Guided Pathway Advice Platform

Grant: £114,930
July 4, 2018

Development of an Online Reasonable Adjustments Guided Pathway Advice Platform.

Asylum Guides National Scaling

Grant: £70,828
June 20, 2018

Scaling up the delivery of the Asylum Guides project, previously supported by TLEF, increasing the ability of newly arrived people to navigate the asylum process, and to feed lessons on systemic challenges into wider policy work.

Improving access to legal advice for families involved with the child welfare system

Grant: £40,000
June 20, 2018

The project will make it easier for families whose children are in need, at risk, or in care, to get advice and guidance, via our website.

Some visitors have had no experience of the child welfare system and are not emotionally ready to absorb much information. Others are litigants in person who need to draw on detailed legal materials and step-by-step guides in order to self-represent. Users have diverse literacy levels.

The new advice section, within the existing FRG website, will use the latest technology to ensure ease and interactivity of use. The design will tier advice resources to reflect users’ different levels of knowledge, understanding and need.

The design will include infographics, links to films about different child welfare processes and audio case studies. It will also include template letters to strengthen families abilities to self-litigate.

EEA citizens pooled fund

Grant: £200,000
November 16, 2017

This is part of a pooled fund to help secure a fair process for EEA nationals to stay in UK in accordance with the law. The fund will work on two main issues: capacity of civil society to engage with policy on matters for EEA citizens, especially vulnerable groups; and provision of information for vulnerable groups about the process, potentially looking at technology solutions.

Initially, NPC will work with experts to develop a suitable strategy for the fund and the fund will be advised by a council of experts throughout. NPC will conduct due diligence on potential grantees and put forward the most relevant organisations. A committee of NPC staff with relevant expertise in grant-making and policy work will peer review and decide the grants with oversight from council of experts.

We expect the fund to open for grants for two years from Spring/Summer 2018. Gathering and disseminating knowledge to benefit the wider sector will be a key objective of the fund and NPC will monitor the funding and disseminate learning (through roundtables, events, blogs) for another year.

Law in the making: enabling domestic abuse survivors’ study of the law during the passage of the DVA Bill

Grant: £70,000
November 13, 2017

The government will consult on the Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA) Bill – which aims to consolidate, improve and extend legal provisions for survivors of domestic abuse. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a step change in the identification of and response to domestic abuse. As the national organisation representing domestic abuse services in England and working alongside sister organisations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Women’s Aid is in a unique position to lead the sector’s response.

Domestic abuse survivors rely heavily on the law – for many, it forms an essential part of their escape from a violent perpetrator. It is therefore vital that survivors’ voices and experiences are at the heart of primary law reform and the new statutory regulations and guidance that will link to the new Act, and that survivors and the services who support them understand the impact of those changes.

In order to engage survivors of domestic abuse in the development of the DVA Bill, we will trial a real-time study of the law using the Bill by a group of survivors. This will increase their knowledge of the law-making process and the resulting Act of Parliament.

Response to Grenfell Tower

Grant: £66,788
July 28, 2017

North Kensington Law Centre is situated at the base of Grenfell Tower. The devastating fire in June 2017 caused an unprecedented need for legal education and legal services amongst the local community. The Law Centre worked with the local Citizens Advice Bureau and two other local advice charities to identify the gaps in services and funding for meeting legal advice needs in the immediate aftermath.

This funding allows the Law Centre to create a 'Grenfell' team; boosting, particularly, their capacity for immigration and housing casework, for public law, for coordination of expert pro bono volunteers and for strategic litigation.