Fate of Manchester Advice up for scrutiny

Article published: Thursday, May 19th 2011

Councillors have referred the future of Manchester Advice for overview and scrutiny following the presentation of 4,000 signatures from six petitions protesting against the free legal advice service’s closure at the council’s full meeting on Wednesday 18 May.

Presenting the petition, Talat Zeria from the Sunni Muslim Association said closure would end “an essential and vital service not provided elsewhere.” He noted how it had “taken many years to build community cohesion” and warned that other providers “don’t have the language skills or cultural competencies” to offer help.

Currently the council intends to save £1.68 million as part of this year’s £109 million cuts through closing Manchester Advice. The free legal service offers advice and signposting for mental and physical health, housing advice, debt management, works training, domestic abuse support, benefits advice and a ‘Linkworker’ service for people from marginalised ethnic groups.

Referral to the council’s Citizenship and Inclusion Overview and Scrutiny Committee came after threatened legal action, with initial closure having been postponed until after 26 May following an outcry from campaigners.

Opponents allege that the council has already effectively decided on closure without conducting a legally required Equality Impact Assessment, designed to prevent unfair discrimination on the basis of gender, age, sexuality, disability or race. The council maintains it has followed due process and will not take a final decision until “after consideration of all issues including an Equality Impact Assessment.”

Steph Pike of the campaign group Access2Advice gave a cautious welcome to the referral, saying “maybe the scrutiny committee is the best place to properly scrutinise it”. However, she said the council was “effectively pre-empting” the decision through the voluntary redundancy of a third of the service’s staff and the refusal to take on any new clients.

Pike told Mule: “If they’re serious then we’re calling on them to keep it open and re-staff it until the decision is taken.”

Campaigners argue closure will damage community cohesion and incur long-run financial costs through taking away the ability to prevent serious social issues such as homelessness. In the last year for which figures are available it resolved 19,344 complex cases for 8,596 clients, saving residents just under £28 million, while specialist debt advisors assisted 1,205 people in managing £11 million worth of debt according to the service’s 2009/10 annual report. Advice for people with disabilities and their carers is also provided, making up 74 per cent of the service’s welfare benefits caseload.

Under current plans support is to be reduced to an internet signposting service, “three self-help advice kiosks” based around the city and benefit advice “targeted at those customers with mental health and HIV issues”, albeit subject to review in 12 months time. The Court Advice Service, which provides last minute legal aid to people threatened with repossession, is to be reprieved. Domestic violence support services are to be cut, although retained at a reduced level, and the council is “reconsidering whether to retain a number of BME [Black Minority Ethnic] Linkworkers.”

The council claims the continuation of the city’s six Community Legal Advice Service (CLAS) centres, operated by Citizens Advice Bureaux, will prevent gaps in coverage. Campaigners warn that CLAS, funded jointly by the council and the Legal Services Commission, has far less capacity than Manchester Advice and will be unable to absorb its caseload.

National legal aid funding, on which CLAS partly relies, is facing severe reductions as part of a 23 per cent cut in the Ministry of Justice’s budget over four years following last October’s comprehensive spending review. Government figures estimate the poorest 20 per cent will make up four fifths of those affected.

Richard Goulding

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