Legal Advice for Education and Disability Work

In 2013 under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, the government decided to fund advice and assistance on special educational needs and discrimination work only through a telephone advice service.  There are currently two providers of this service to cover England and Wales.  However, a decision has been issued this week that the government will cancel the telephone advice service and will not be awarding any contracts for education and discrimination services after 1 September 2018 through the current process.  

The reason given is that the Legal Aid Agency did not receive a sufficient number of tenders from law firms willing to carry out this work.  The Legal Aid Agency, who awards the contracts to those firms willing to undertake the work, have given no further details and we await further information so that we can share this with you.