OUR PURPOSE
We're the community of practice for Liverpool's free legal advice sector. There are lots of organisations delivering advice in Liverpool, all with the same goals of eradicating poverty and helping people to live healthier, fairer, and happier lives. Our work brings everyone together: we're sharing our skills and knowledge and amplifying our voices to call for change.
The need for free legal advice in Liverpool.
Liverpool is the 3rd most deprived local authority in England.
Our city is home to very high levels of deprivation. According to the most recent indices of deprivation data from 2019, 48% of all Liverpool residents and 57% of children are living in areas which rank in the top 10% most deprived areas in the country. Austerity driven policies, the COVID-19 pandemic, and an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis have disproportionately affected Liverpool.
At the same time, funding for advice services has reduced significantly; demand for advice far outstrips capacity, which in turn exacerbates poverty and other social determinants of health.
Liverpool Access to Advice Network was formed as a collaborative response to this environment of rising demand and limited capacity to try to maximise the effectiveness of the scarce resources of free advice organisations in Liverpool, whilst simultaneously working together to increase our capacity.
What is free legal advice and how does it help?
We all face issues at points in our lives that we need help with.
We define free legal advice to be advice given to help people manage problems which have a legal element linked to them. If these problems were to be left long enough without any action or support, they could develop into more serious matters. These issues may arise from many everyday events, such as the birth of a child or death, losing or gaining employment, immigration, receiving benefits, housing issues or homelessness, money and debt problems, and many more. Often, when these issues are left without advice or support, further issues can develop creating a situation which feels almost impossible to begin addressing. In our context, advice is legal by nature because it relates to an individual's rights. It can also be delivered at differing levels, from one-off information to representation in court or at a tribunal.
Access to free legal advice is essential for finding a way forward and stopping further issues from developing. Free legal advice helps because it helps people to take control of their situation. It can involve support developing an action plan, enforcing an individual's rights, unlocking financial support, or the provision of information and guidance. More often than not, people don't know that they have options or rights that will help them tackle a problem - they just need someone to help them take the first steps.
What does Liverpool Access to Advice Network do?
Our mission: No wrong door, advice for all.
As a community of practice, we're a group of organisations and people who share the same goals and concerns. In our case, we're ambitious about ensuring that everyone in Liverpool can access free legal advice, and we're working to address the barriers that may stop people being able to do so.
The free legal advice sector is at breaking point, and the organisations working to deliver free legal advice are struggling to meet the demand from people needing advice whilst fighting to maintain and sustain their services.
We're working to help our members improve their organisational resilience. We offer critically important services to our members that they may not have the capacity or resources to develop themselves. We offer:
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Structured training programmes, determined by the needs and aspirations of our members.
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Facilitation of resource-sharing and collaboration between members to build support networks within our sector.
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Programmes and events to share information and skills, such as bimonthly network meetings and workshops to allow our members to learn from each other and specialist providers.
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Informative, member-led communications to circulate relevant information within the sector, such as funding opportunities, job vacancies, and events.
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A unique online member area, with funding and training information, details for connecting and collaborating within the network, and a host of member-exclusive resources.
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Research and data-gathering conducted in alliance with our academic partners to demonstrate the social and financial value of free legal advice.
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Powerful and leading campaigns and events, such as an annual conference, to champion the work being done by our members to improve outcomes for all.
There's a lot you can gain by joining us. Click here to join us in our mission to improve access to advice for all.
What are our plans for the future?
We're innovating to improve access to advice for all.
We've come a long way in the short time since we were established, but we have even bigger plans for the future.
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We're working to become a fully independent charity. We're ambitious about expanding our work and services to reach every advice provider and gateway to advice in Liverpool. We'll do this through strengthening our governance structures, responding to our members' needs and working to involve our members in every step of our future development.
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We believe that the fundamental way to allow people to have easy, independent access to advice is to give them the power to identify the support they need and to refer themselves for advice. We aim to develop a dynamic directory and referral tool to allow access to advice for residents and secure inter-agency referrals. This system would increase the possibilities of access to early stage help. If this service were to be integrated with Liverpool's wider health and wellbeing offer, we believe it would make a vital contribution to improving health outcomes and preventing crises.
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We want to know what the true value of advice is to society. We know that access to advice has positive economic outcomes in that it can prevent issues such as debt and homelessness which are potentially costly issues for local authorities. We also know that access to advice has the power to improve health, as it can help people increase their income and reduce the burden that issues may be placing on their physical and mental wellbeing. We're also interested to know how advice benefits people and communities more broadly - we question whether access to advice has the power to improve education levels, bolster community cohesion, and raise life satisfaction levels.
We have a lot of work to do, and we won't rest until everyone in Liverpool has free and fair access to advice. If you want to help us by supporting or funding our work, click here to get in touch with us.
