So!!! As you will see we’ve had a much needed change to the look of the blog. I hope you like!
In this issue: -
- Contribution to the cause – Lord Hunt
- Twitter Following
- Linking with iLegal
Contribution to the cause – Lord Hunt
ALAC managed to secure a meeting with Lord Hunt aided by the assistance of Lisa Trickett, Director of Knowledge Transfer at Birmingham Business School and UpRisings’ Project Leader Zehra Zaidi. This took place at The Bond, Wednesday 6th April after a pre-meeting meeting over the road at the Fazeley Studios. In the pre-meet we agreed on a five point agenda as follows: -
- Introduce ourselves
- Introduce the Social Action Project (SAP)
- The government consultation and our response
- Assessment of our future direction
- Subsequent meeting
Zehra attended to help administer the meeting and also on behalf of the UpRising program. Dan cited the CAB figures demonstrating the easing affect legal aid has and we concurred that in essence the cuts would likely be financially counter-productive. We shared our concerns on the loss of experienced specialists within all the various support structures losing funding. How it may be that when they’re gone and in two years when funding comes back they would not return. We expressed our expectations on how the government would react, recalling the EMA cuts and how they returned with a reduction. We focused on promoting a solution, engaging with the local public and professional community, publicising the campaign and arranging an event. It was a real pleasure to meet him and ALAC are very thankful for his insight and support. Following this he has posed two Parliamentary questions on behalf of ALAC. These can be found via the following link:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldcumlst.htm
We are extremely honored to have this happen, look forward to a written response and a further meeting with Lord Hunt.
Twitter Following
Look at our esteemed Twitter following!! OMG! BCC West Midlands Politics show, Justice For All, Sound Off For Justice, Birmingham Feminists, CAB, the MoJ, Jon Snow of C4, Nick Clegg, and too many MPs and Councillors to mention – plus some edge; WikiLeaks :-O thanks to all for the support!!!
Linking with iLegal
iLegal (also following us on Twitter), has uploaded our consultation response as a public download on their site. See the link below
iLegal is a great source and force for the culmination of people’s responses and current news on relating matters; really worth checking out.
Soon to follow will be a bio of each of the six team members and a bit of coverage on the annual 10k legal walk. Thanks for reading and watch this space!
