Increase Public Understanding

Digital Triage Platform for Londoners needing free Community Legal Advice

Grant: £18,194
June 22, 2016

Creation of a digital solution to accelerate resolution of client queries which are relatively straight-forward to enable resources to be focused on more complex cases.

The idea is to help more of the people served to understand, articulate and categorise their own legal advice needs so that the organisation can be more focused and efficient with its advice, education and support services. This project will approach the challenge from first principles – looking at the client journey from first contact to a resolution of their problem and the efficiency of the processes that is currently employed along the way. The intention is to seek ways in which digital solutions can accelerate the journey without compromising the client’s experience and the quality of support given to them.

Analysis by the organisation suggests that the triage process holds the greatest potential for a digital solution to resolve more of clients’ relatively straight-forward queries so that focus can be given to face-to-face time on people with multiple, complex and urgent legal advice needs.

The aim is to implement this solution in boroughs across London on a fee-earning basis and to add value to bids for advice contracts in order to pay for on-going development.

Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards 2016

Grant: £10,000
February 10, 2016

This project is to fund the Access to Justice through IT award at the Legal Aid Lawyer of the year awards. The award held in July each year is made to encourage IT projects but also to publicise what is already being done so that people can plan better for the future and provide a better service to their clients.

Using Technology to Transform Support to Litigants in Person

Grant: £50,000
November 10, 2015

The aim is to better serve LIPs by further investing in PSU's legal education support and knowledge management systems, while fully establishing dynamic IT systems to support its rapidly expanding service.

Project plans to,

1. Equip volunteers to provide the best possible help to LIPs, improving each LIPs' understanding of the law and the capability to use it, by increasing volunteers':
• understanding of legal process
• knowledge of online information resources and how to access them when working with LIPs
• time available to support LIPs, due to streamlined administrative processes
2. Prepare to respond to changes in LIP need resulting from online reform of the courts

The project will achieve these aims by:

1. Maximising the value of TLEF 2014 grant and the PSU's Office365 intranet by implementing online, automated statistical and volunteer rota systems, and increasing use of LIP online resources through new hardware
2. Providing additional staffing needed to implement new technology
3. Developing online training for PSU volunteers and LIPs
4. Responding to legal and technological changes by
• improving PSU online accessibility for LIPs
• commissioning research into implications of digital reform for LIPs and the PSU

Immigration & Asylum Partnership Project

Grant: £7,363
November 10, 2015

The aim of project is to provide individuals across North Wales, access to independent legal advice on all categories of law relating to immigration & asylum seekers. It is intended that such advice will be delivered through the medium of video conferencing at CAB Cylch Conwy & Wrexham District Citizens Advice offices. The video conference legal advice partnership will be delivered by Jackson Canter through their offices in Liverpool and Manchester.

The grant is to provide the video conferencing equipment required within two Citizens Advice Bureau offices in North Wales, Llandudno & Wrexham, and is required to deliver a pilot face to face advice service via video conferencing.

The Asylum Guides Project

Grant: £148,638
November 10, 2015

The Project will empower people claiming asylum in North West England to engage meaningfully with the asylum process by providing them with legal literacy on the UK asylum system.

Highly skilled volunteer Asylum Guides, located in organisations trusted by the client group, will provide people seeking asylum with a legal literacy programme. They will meet their clients in person at key stages in their journey through the asylum process to understand and prepare for their interactions with the Home Office - from arrival until their case is concluded.

Exhausted by the asylum seeking experience, and ill-prepared to navigate the process alone, this staged, relational legal literacy approach will engage this population to feel more engaged with their claim and have a better understanding of what is happening at each stage of the process. Moreover, the Solihull Early Advice Pilot showed, they are more likely to accept the outcome of their asylum claim if they have had the process explained to them and are able to participate in the decision making with the support of a trained advisor.

Asylum Guides will be trained using digital educational tools thus ensuring that this is an accessible, scalable public law educational model.

Building Legal Capability Of Pregnant Women At Work

Grant: £57,300
November 10, 2015

The project will produce four short videos guiding pregnant women and new mothers through the processes they need to follow to resolve disputes about management of sickness at work and will also scope use of apps to deliver maternity rights information.

Pregnancy discrimination, including poor management of sickness, is widespread. Government research found that 11% of pregnant women lose their jobs because of discrimination. Only 8% of these women take formal action (pursue a grievance, seek advice, employment tribunal claim).

The videos will guide low income women through informal meetings with their employers and the formal grievance process, complementing Maternity Action's widely used online information. The videos will be informed by focus groups with low income women and input from unions, and will be piloted with women prior to release to test efficacy. The videos will be fully evaluated and the learning will inform future projects to build legal capability.

Discussions have been held with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) about joint work to deliver maternity rights information through apps and the project will also scope this work, producing a detailed proposal.

Third and Final Phase of the Low Commission's work

Grant: £36,500
July 16, 2015

There are many settings in our community where people can identify individuals who need informal advice, such as GP surgeries, community centres, faith groups etc. This project will provide an online information source for social welfare law practitioners in three areas of social welfare law – employment, housing and community care. It will cover topics such as housing, employment and community care law including self-help guides on common legal problems.

LAG was instrumental in establishing and supporting the Low Commission on the Future of Advice and Legal Support which aimed to address the challenges facing social welfare law. The LIP will be active in the run-up to the general election seeking to inform the political parties and public opinion in support the recommendations of the Commission. This grant will allow LAG to engage additional public affairs and PR resources to raise the profile and engagement with this project.

Rights in Practice

Grant: £69,544
July 1, 2015

This project will harness the power of experiencing changes that can be made using rights and rights enforcement to build legal capability within some of the most disadvantaged groups in society through informed casework practice.

Office Funding

Grant: £25,000
July 1, 2015

Funding for 5 desks for one year to enable the Centre to provide cost free accommodation to early stage organisations.

Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards

Grant: £10,000
February 11, 2015

This project is to fund the Access to Justice through IT award at the Legal Aid Lawyer of the year awards. The award held in July each year is made to encourage IT projects but also to publicise what is already being done so that people can plan better for the future and provide a better service to their clients.