Civil areas of work

On this page:

Family
Immigration and asylum
Social welfare
Mental health and other civil areas
Specialist Support

Family

During the financial year 2005/06 we spent over £500 million on publicly funded family legal proceedings. This provided funding for almost 140,000 cases.

In the same year, we spent an additional £13.7 million funding family mediation. This helped almost 21,500 people to try to manage their relationship breakdown without going to court.

Legal aid providers should visit these pages for:

the mediation contract
family legal guidance and updates.

Immigration and asylum

We are working to increase access to advice for immigration and asylum clients.

This section describes our immigration policy for legal aid cases.

Legal aid providers should visit these pages for guidance on:

Social welfare

Social welfare law covers:

community care
debt
employment
housing
welfare benefits.

We have provided integrated services in these areas both through Community Legal Advice Centres and Networks and, where possible, combining the categories of Debt, Housing and Welfare Benefits in the 2010 civil contracts.

We also provide advice at a number of courts through the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme.

Mental health and other civil areas

Our work in these areas covers:

mental health
actions against the police
clinical negligence
consumer general contract
education
miscellaneous
personal injury
public law.

Specialist Support

This service is for legal aid providers.

We fund nine Specialist Support organisations to provide a second tier, expert service in civil categories of law to eligible organisations.

Specialist Support covers:

housing
welfare benefits
debt
employment
immigration
community care
public law
mental health.