Equality and diversity

Our commiment to diversity

The LSC is committed to leading by example in promoting an environment that values diversity and promotes equality.

On this page you can find statistical information about the diversity of the LSC workforce and our service users and the LSC’s equality objectives.

Equality objectives

We are committed to ensuring that we have due regard to equality in our delivery of legal aid. We value diversity and aim to promote an understanding of the needs of different people whether staff, legal aid clients or providers.

We have agreed a set of equality objectives and steps we will take to meet our public sector equality duty during 2011 - 2012 and beyond.

Our equality priorities include:

improving our knowledge and collection of information about the needs of service users and;
taking account of the diverse needs of the staff when implementing our programme of organisational change.

The LSC equality objectives are available in the documents panel on the right hand side.

Equality and diversity information

Workforce

Our Equality and Diversity Annual Report 2010-2011 (Employment) contains information about the diversity of all those who worked for the LSC during 2010-2011.

Service users

We invite people who apply for legal aid and those who call the Community Legal Advice helpline to tell us some useful equal opportunities information. This is entirely voluntary and has no bearing on their application for legal aid. The information is treated in confidence and used only for statistical purposes. It allows us to monitor the diversity profile of our service users and inform decisions about their likely needs.

The following reports summarise the information provided in statistical format. The documents are in the panel on the right.

Equality and Diversity Information for the Community Legal Advice Helpline

This report produces information in a statistical format. Information is available in relation to the age, race, gender and disability for callers.

LSC Equality Information about Service Users 2010-2011

We invite people who apply for legal aid to tell us some equal opportunities information. This spreadsheet contains information about the application for different types legal aid in relation to applicants’ age, race, gender and disability.

LSC Equality and Diversity Information about Legal Aid before the Crown and Magistrates’ Courts

This paper contains information about cases granted legal aid before Crown or magistrates’ courts during 2010-2011.

Provider diversity report

Information about the diversity of legal aid providers is published by the Legal Services Research Centre.

The latest report was published in 2011.

Information from previous years

For information about the diversity of service users in previous years see our Equalities Annual Reports that are archived on the LSC website at the National Archives.

More equality and diversity information

More equality and diversity information is published by the Ministry of Justice on the Justice website.

Contact the LSC Equality & Diversity team with any questions.

Last updated: 04 April 2012