Advice Strategy
4. Areas of law
Housing
As described in the preceding needs analysis, housing is a key area for information and advice about people’s rights. Unsurprisingly, the main areas of need for housing advice have been identified as being those wards previously defined as areas of high deprivation according to the Index of Multiple Deprivation ( IMD). These are areas around the centre of Halifax, to the north of Halifax, Todmorden and Brighouse.
Upon first draft of this strategy, there was more specialist housing supply. Since July 2002, there has only been one CLS Specialist outlet for housing law in Calderdale. This is Craney Cave & Co. Solicitors, located in Hebden Bridge, not one of the main priority geographical areas for housing.
Therefore all of the areas that we have identified as having high need do not currently have a CLS Specialist supplier. Areas which previously had coverage and no longer do so are – Elland, Mixenden, Ovenden, St John’s, Todmorden and Town.
There are also concerns about not having any CLS Specialist suppliers in St John’s ward, who could serve the particular needs of the Asian community.
Mixenden Parent Resource Centre, which is based in Mixenden does provide a casework service in housing although it is currently a very limited service and it has yet to submit a CLS Quality Mark application.
The Local Authority Housing Advice Centre does provide generalist housing advice, but concentrates on carrying out homelessness assessment under Part VII of the 1996 Housing Act. This also means that it is not independent and cannot challenge its own decisions. However the need for independent advice does not replace the need for the Housing Advice Centre. In addition Smartmove also provides housing advice. Both these organisations have yet to submit Quality Mark applications. The partnership aims to support these organisations in achieving the appropriate Quality Mark.
The District CAB does provide a representation service at County Court mortgage possession hearings and also provides advice at provisional General Help level at all five centres and seven outreaches. Calderdale Women’s Centre and Age Concern Calderdale do provide a Quality Marked General Help service.
Clearly, there are concerns about there being no specialist providers in any of the areas that are in high priority. There are also concerns about the need for:
- An independent Quality Marked Housing Aid centre that can give advice and Generalist Help with Casework.
- Additional specialist level services providing support to other providers.
- Court based services working with rent and mortgage possession cases.
Debt
Debt was identified as being a key area of need right across Calderdale. At present, the CAB is the only Specialist provider. There is one specialist franchise worker to cover the five outlets in Calderdale. These are listed below alongside the wards in which these are located. The third column indicates the level of need (that is, high, medium or low) that was allocated to those wards in the needs analysis.
Organisation Ward Level of Need Calderdale CAB Elland High Calderdale CAB Todmorden High Calderdale CAB Brighouse Medium Calderdale CAB Luddendenfoot Medium There are five areas that the needs analysis identified as being high need which do not currently have a CLS Specialist service. These are Illingworth, Mixenden, Ovenden, St John’s and Warley. There is particular concern about the lack of suppliers in the North Halifax area (particularly, Ovenden and Mixenden). Although there are services situated in the centre of Halifax (Town Ward), that may be accessed by people from across Calderdale, anecdotal evidence gathered through initial consultation events suggests that, in some areas that are geographically close to the centre of Halifax, some residents are unlikely to travel into the centre for services - although within certain client groups there may be more of a willingness to access tailored services situated elsewhere (for example, for disability advice).
Calderdale DART (Disabled Advice Resource Team) work across Calderdale, focussing on disability and provide a Quality Marked Debt Casework service.
Generalist services include:
Organisation Ward Level of Need Quality Marked Calderdale Women’s Centre Town, St John’s, North Halifax & Todmorden High Yes Age Concern - Calderdale All across Calderdale focussing on older people All Yes Mixenden Parents’ Resource Mixenden High No Queen’s Road Advice Centre St. John's High No Rhodes Street Advice Centre* St John’s High No † Rhodes Street Advice Centre is not currently fully operational.
The other important factor to bear in mind regarding debt is that it is a category of high need right across the Borough. This means that, potentially, areas of apparently (relative) low need may also require extra provision. This is likely to be an area of future focus for the partnership.
As in other areas of law, we need to think carefully about the way in which services are delivered in order to ensure maximum access across all sections of the community. In particular, we need to look at outreach services to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged sections of the community.
Employment
There is limited supply in Calderdale for employment advice.
Organisation Ward Need Ranking Chadwick Lawrence Town High Finn Gledhill Town High Rice-Jones Town Hight Wilkinson Woodward Town High Clearly, there is a concentration of CLS employment specialists in the centre of Halifax with every supplier of employment advice being based in the town centre. Again, this raises issues about access to specialist advice, particularly in the other areas identified as high need – St John’s, Ovenden, Todmorden, Mixenden, Elland and Sowerby Bridge.
There are a number of agencies offering General Help with Casework in employment which may cater for some of the communities without CLS Specialist supply. However, even when we include General Help with Casework, there remain areas of high need without any specialist or casework supply.
Welfare Benefits
There are six CLS Specialist Welfare Benefits outlets in Calderdale. These are relatively well spread across a number of wards and, again, this area of work is dominated by the District CAB:
Organisation Ward Level of need Calderdale CAB Brighouse, Elland, Town, Luddendenfoot & Todmorden High & Medium Pattersons Town High This leaves Mixenden, Ovenden, Sowerby Bridge and St John’s as areas identified as having high need for welfare benefits advice but with no CLS Specialist provision.
There is one Not for Profit agency which provides a Quality Marked ‘casework’ service in Welfare Benefits work, Calderdale DART, focussing on disability.
There are other Not for Profit agencies which provide General Help:
Organisation Ward Level of Need Quality Mark Calderdale Women’s Centre Town, St Johns, North Halifax & Todmorden High Yes Age Concern - Calderdale Cross Calderdale focussing on older people All Yes Cloverleaf Advocacy Cross Calderdale focussing on people with learning difficulties All Yes Mixenden Parents’ Resource Mixenden High No Queen’s Road Advice Centre St. John's High No Rhodes Street Advice Centre* St. John's High No * Rhodes Street Advice Centre is not currently fully operational.
We need to work with the agencies that are not Quality Marked in order to support them in attaining the CLS Quality Mark at the most appropriate level.
The other support mechanism that we need to be aware of are Calderdale MBC’s own benefits workers. The partnership needs to develop much stronger links with these council services in order to ensure that there is a comprehensive web of information and advice provision for communities within Calderdale and that the Quality Mark is attained where appropriate.
Immigration
As in other areas of the region, and indeed the country, the lack of capacity in immigration advice is a cause for concern. As indicated in the needs analysis, although the number of individuals who have been dispersed to Calderdale and are seeking refugee status is relatively small, there are concerns that there is not the infrastructure in place to ensure that those who do arrive have access to information and advice.
There is only one firm in Calderdale that has a contract under the expansion package in order to provide CLS Specialist advice in immigration and asylum law – Kauser & Co., based in the centre of Halifax.
The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (Part V) established a scheme to regulate immigration advisers in the United Kingdom. The Act set up the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) as an independent public body to ensure that immigration advisers are fit and competent and act in the best interests of their clients. Since 30 April 2001 it has been a criminal offence for an adviser to provide immigration advice or services unless their organisation is either registered with the OISC or has been granted a certificate of exemption by the OISC.
There are currently only two organisations registered with the OISC, one of which is the CAB, who are only registered at level one, which is the ‘Diagnosis of client’s need for specific immigration advice, basic administrative support and some basic applications for entry clearance, leave to enter and variations of leave as specified, with the proviso that should the application be refused or any ongoing casework arise, the case is referred on to a higher-level provider. ‘
There is one other private organisation, which is registered at level three, which is equivalent to the Specialist level Quality Mark. However it is listed as a ‘for profit’ organisation and does not currently possess a CLS Quality Mark.
There are two other organisations, based in St John’s ward, which could potentially offer General Help – Queens Road Advice Centre and Rhodes Street Advice Centre. These organisations do not currently have a Quality Mark and are not registered with the OISC. Therefore, currently the only service that can be provided is that at ‘level 0’, which is signposting and information, ‘No advice is provided and there is no ongoing relationship between the two parties. The only activity is the provision of basic information on which a person can act or the signpost of that person on to an appropriate provider.’
The partnership believes that any organisation that is giving much needed advice in the area of immigration and asylum should be supported in its efforts to achieve the Quality Mark and OISC registration. The partnership also feels that there is very limited supply in more general support structures for refugees and asylum seekers. These structures are beyond the remit of the CLSP in terms of delivery, but the partnership feels that it is important that such issues are brought to the general attention of funders.
Health and Community Care
This area of law deals with issues such as failures by the Social Services or the Primary Care Trust to provide services or facilities to the sick, older people or those with disabilities.
There are no practitioners located within Calderdale, but equally, as an area of law there is relatively little demand for specialist help. Indeed, there are only four CLS Specialist providers in the entire Yorkshire and Humber Region. These are based in Doncaster, Wakefield, Huddersfield and Bradford. Whilst the partnership would prefer to see local supply available, for accessibility, all of these ‘regional’ suppliers provide a service, which could be accessed by Calderdale residents seeking help in this area of law. The consultation process has indicated that there is a low level of awareness of these services amongst groups working with those client groups most likely to be affected.
Mental Health
As an area of law, mental health is concerned with the rights of those who are detained in an institution under the Mental Health Act. Currently there is no CLS practitioner for specialist mental health law in Calderdale.
However, the number of patients detained under the Mental Health Act is relatively small and the geographical location of a single Mental Health practitioner is not overly important since specialist work will usually be carried out within a hospital (that is, away from wherever the practitioner has his/her offices). Moreover, the rules for funding CLS Specialist help allow up to two hours travelling time in each direction (or even more in certain circumstances) which allow local patients to access solicitors from across the Yorkshire and Humber Region as well as from cities such as Manchester. Indeed, there is currently a regional project underway, supported by the LSC and the Law Society, which aims to promote access to advice amongst detained patients. This involves:
- the production of neutral publicity materials (posters,and so on) for use on wards
- production of a good practice guide
- a list of contracted Mental Health law practioners who have a contract with the Yorkshire and Humberside Office.
This ought to be sufficient to meet the needs of detained patients. More details about this regional project are available on request.
In addition to the specialist area of Mental Health law, the partnership also feels that we should pay attention to those with mental health problems as a client group with regard to how these individuals access ‘mainstream’ advice on issues such as housing or debt. At present, there is no effective way of gauging the way in which current provision is meeting, or indeed failing to meet, the needs of this very vulnerable client group. The partnership will continue to liase with agencies working with this client group in order to establish whether current provision in other areas of social welfare law is being delivered in a way that allows and encourages access.
Matrimonial / Family
As is suggested in the needs analysis, family law is genuinely ‘demand led’. There are currently twelve contracts for family work across Calderdale and the partnership anticipates that, in terms of volume, this supply ought to be sufficient to meet current need.
However, there are some concerns about the mixture of supply and the uniform way in which it is currently delivered. In particular, there are issues around whether certain sections of the community would feel comfortable accessing the types of supply that are currently available. The CLSP believes that a genuine commitment to equality of opportunity needs to underpin all services. This means that special attention needs to be paid to delivering services to client groups, which may not currently access provision such as Asian women.
In addition, the partnership would like to emphasise the need for services to victims and survivors of domestic violence. This is in line with the Lord Chancellor’s Direction to give high priority to domestic violence proceedings and the partnership would like to support further developments in this area.
Education
Education law is concerned with issues such as a local authority’s failure to provide education, admissions disputes, exclusions and special needs provision. Again, the level of need within any one partnership area is relatively small and the few providers who do exist within this field of law are not based in Calderdale. However, the partnership would prefer to see local supply made available.
At present, there is CLS Specialist provision in Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield. These providers could meet the needs of Calderdale residents.
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