MOJ Early Legal Advice Pilot on housing debt and welfare
Government Social Research publications commissioned by MOJ, which report the independent evaluation results of a pilot intervention providing early legal advice for housing, debt, and welfare benefit matters.
Applies to England and Wales
Documents
Details
The Early Legal Advice Pilot (ELAP) launched in October 2022 and tested the expansion of legal aid for up to three hours of early legal advice for housing, debt, and welfare benefit matters. ELAP was one of several proposals in the MOJ Legal Support Action Plan (2019) which followed the Post-Implementation Review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012. ELAP was trialled in Manchester and Middlesbrough and was financed through the HM Treasury Shared Outcomes Fund. Following a feasibility study a pilot-RCT was put in place to mitigate risk and test critical assumptions before moving to a full trial. These reports present the results of the feasibility phase, the pilot RCT, and an exercise to produce a Value for Money framework.