Legal aid cuts could cost 100 Shelter jobs

07 Feb 2013 News

Shelter plans to provide more legal services online and over the phone as it considers proposals to close ten advice centres and lose 100 staff as a result of the halving of government legal aid support.

Shelter plans to provide more legal services online and over the phone as it considers proposals to close ten advice centres and lose 100 staff as a result of the halving of government legal aid support.

The charity from , but after a consultation it is now proposing the closure of ten advice centres. It had previously predicted that eight centres and half of its 150 legal services staff would go.

Shelter is facing a halving of its legal aid funding, which in 2011/2012 was worth £6m.

Chief executive Campbell Robb (pictured) said the cuts will be a “massive blow” to the people needing the face-to-face legal services, but that Shelter will still work to help these people by providing advice online and via its helpline.

“The cuts have meant some difficult decisions about how we best use the resources we have to help those in housing need,” said Robb. “While service closures are absolutely a last resort, we simply cannot fill the gap created by the scale of these cuts with other sources.  We are consulting with the staff affected at this difficult time.”

Unite the Union recognised the blow that the £3m legal aid funding loss was to Shelter, but said the charity must do more to protect frontline staff jobs and said that Shelter is in danger of becoming a “virtual charity”.

The union is calling on Robb and the board to put the closures on hold, and to consider alternative cost-saving proposals, including diverting money intended for the expansion of the helpline and digital advice services, as well as campaigning budget. It has also encouraged the board to draw on the charity’s reserves to fund the frontline services.

But the union agreed with Shelter on the point of the damage the legal aid cuts are likely to make. Unite’s Sally Kosky said: “You cannot starve organisations of funding, slash benefits and expect business as usual. The government has an obligation to provide  help for those made desperate by its austerity obsession.”

Shelter has long campaigned against the cuts, and Robb reiterated the charity’s line about the timing of the reduction of legal aid. “With the ongoing recession, benefit cuts, and the high cost of housing meaning more and more people struggling to keep a roof over their heads, now is the very worst time to be taking away the housing safety net that helps people stay in their homes,” he said. 

The legal aid cuts have claimed more charity victims in the past, with

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