Paul Bristow

This is the latest article in a series about Hammersmith and Fulham Council's cutting of funding to voluntary sector organisations, and its targeting in particular of the Hammersmith and Fulham Law Centre, which is about to lose 60% of its funding.

There are links to the earlier articles in this series at the end of this story. There are also links to the Conservative blogs that have been discussing this issue and these posts.

Community law centres aren't always popular with the national and local politicians that fund them, but surely that's par for the course?

Law centres were set up to provide free legal advice to people who can't afford to pay for legal help and representation. Often, these people are users of public services like immigration services, council housing, and welfare. And there are, unfortunately, times when these people are not given the right advice about their immigration, housing and welfare entitlements.

The truth is that government agencies and councils are as capable of cocking up as the rest of us, and on an awesome scale when they really give it a go. They wrongly deny people their entitlements to housing benefits, or at work, or they don't act on complaints with quite the vigour you'd hope.

And who can blame them for these shambles? Times ain't exactly high in the public-sector trenches. Frontline staff - people who know as much as anyone about the ways that complex benefits systems work and combine - are being culled at a majestic rate. God only knows what is happening at the Home Office. Councils are a riot

Having a discussion with Hammersmith and Fulham Tory councillor Paul Bristow over at his blog at the moment. We're talking about the proposed voluntary funding cuts at that council and the effect this will have on the Hammersmith Law Centre in particular. (Naughty Paul actually pinched a photo taken by one of the contributors to this site and put it on his site - see right. That was kind of how we all met each other. Ten points for taste, though - they are pretty good photos).

Anyway - trying to get Paul and council leader Stephen Greenhalgh to agree to an interview on the voluntary funding at Hammersmith and Fulham topic.