Presented by Robert Clark MP		www.robertclark.net

Advisory group to investigate improving access to community legal services

Commonwealth Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, and State Attorney-General, Jan Wade, have announced the membership of the Implementation Advisory Group to look at improving access to community legal services in Victoria.

Ms Jan King, who is a member of the Legal Practice Board, a sitting member of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in Anti-Discrimination and Guardianship matters, a former Director of Legal Aid and community legal-service funding-committee member, is the Group’s independent Chair.

The other members of the Group are from the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s department (2), the Victorian Department of Justice (1), Victoria Legal Aid (2) and the community legal sector (3).

Mrs Wade said she particularly welcomed the involvement of Ms Gillian Wilks, Mr Sam Biondo and Ms Wendy Tobin whose backgrounds and experience in the community legal sector and with the Federation of Community Legal Services (Vic) Inc will greatly assist the deliberations of the Group.

The Group will focus on formulating strategies to improve access to community legal centres throughout Victoria. The Committee will consult widely over a six-month period and develop a timetable for reform.

The Group will make recommendations to the Commonwealth and Victorian Attorneys-General to:

• Ensure that resources provided by the Commonwealth and State are available to the most needy communities.
• Identify core services people-in-need can access, and ensure that the services available are consistent across all community legal centres for people with the same circumstances.
• Propose measures to improve service delivery, such as strategies for maintaining and enhancing community and volunteer involvement and strategies to ensure the on-going financial viability of community legal services.

The Group proposes releasing a series of consultation papers on key issues and will take account of all relevant information, including the Impact Report on the CLC Funding Program. However, its focus is not simply to implement the recommendations of that Report. Rather, the Impact Report is one piece of information available to the Committee to assist its deliberations.

Mrs Wade stressed that Commonwealth and State funding levels will be maintained.

Mr Williams said that the work of the Group would complement the Commonwealth Government’s initiative to enhance the delivery of community legal services to rural, regional and remote areas.

"These initiatives include establishing five new community legal services for regional Australia, the locations of which were chosen on the basis of need, with reference to population, employment and existing access to legal and community services," he said.

Mr Williams also said that a new generalist community legal service is to be established in the Gippsland region.

(Joint News Release, Offices of the Commonwealth and State Attorneys-General, June 25, 1999)