Alternative Law Journal
|
|
Home
| Databases
| WorldLII
| Search
| Feedback
Alternative Law Journal |
|
LOUIS SCHETZER[*]
The decline of bureaucratic, state-centric government during the 1970s, the advent of public sector managerialism in the 1980s and the rise of market governance in the 1990s have all influenced the way in which Community Legal Centres (CLCs) have been established, administered, funded and reviewed. The recent dawning of network governance approaches to addressing disadvantage at the community level, and the increasing influence of Third Way concepts[1] on the current Victorian government, with its emphasis on government/community/ business partnerships, are further influencing the Victorian CLC program. The 1999 election of the Bracks Labor government in Victoria heralded a renewed focus on community as the forum at which disadvantage and inequality is best addressed, with CLCs enjoying somewhat of a renaissance, following the dominance of neo-liberal market governance of the late 1990s.
Early CLCs were ‘voluntary legal centres’ where assistance was provided by lawyers, students and community members who volunteered on a regular basis. There was a strong emphasis on community control and participation in the running of the centres and in the provision of services.[2]
These early initiatives were largely community responses to the failure of the existing disjointed legal aid schemes offered by the state and the private legal profession to provide legal representation to disadvantaged people in the community, particularly young people. The rise of new left politics in the late 1960s and early 1970s produced a new breed of law students and graduates who believed that access to free legal assistance was a right and also a vehicle by which society could be changed. This motivated many to volunteer at CLCs.[3] At a political level, the Henderson Poverty Inquiry, and the Sackville Inquiry into Law and Poverty highlighted the complexities involved in addressing the causes and symptoms of poverty in Australia. At the same time, in recognition of the limited capacity of the state to respond to disadvantage, there was increasing emphasis on community development as a key policy instrument.[4]
However, a formal government funding program for CLCs did not commence until 1979, when the federal government provided $175,000 in total funding to 23 CLCs in four states. The newly funded CLCs had previously been operating as essentially voluntary organisations, receiving some assistance from local councils, donations and philanthropic trusts. In Victoria, state government contributions to CLC funding commenced in 1981 with the establishment of the Legal Aid Commission of Victoria (LACV), a state government statutory authority empowered to coordinate legal aid service delivery to disadvantaged Victorians.
Between 1984 and 1987 Commonwealth funding to CLCs increased substantially and by 1990 the Commonwealth government was contributing almost $2.7 million to 58 CLCs nationally.[5] For Victorian CLCs, the process of applying for funding involved, up until 1991, applications being made annually to the Commonwealth Legal Aid Commission, and thereafter, the LACV CLC Funding Committee. The CLC Funding Committee would make recommendations to the Commonwealth CLC Funding Committee, who would then make recommendations based on the LACV’s submission to the relevant Minister. The Minister would then advise the LACV of the decision.[6]
Under the Commonwealth and state CLC funding guidelines which were established, priority was given to maintaining the funding of existing CLCs, and providing funding to new CLCs which had been operating on a voluntary basis.[7] These guidelines recognised the importance of community volunteerism, commitment and activism in responding to unmet legal need in the community.[8] Generally speaking, an unfunded CLC would have to operate on a voluntary basis before receiving a favourable recommendation from the LACV. According to Noone, the fact that CLCs responded to communities rather than being imposed on communities was a relevant feature of this funding policy.[9]
The advent of government funding symbolised the recognition by government of the role of CLCs in providing legal services to disadvantaged people in the community. However, for some CLCs there was a concern that a formalised funding program would result in the loss of independence and a fear that centres would be expected to emphasise legal casework at the expense of community legal education and systemic advocacy.[10] No longer operating at the margins, CLCs now had to be accountable for their services. In the following decade, community development as a basis for CLC establishment would fall out of favour as governments sought a more strategic approach in determining the location of CLCs, with a view to achieving a more equitable distribution of services.
Official recognition of the importance and value of CLCs took place in 1990, with the release of the National Legal Aid Advisory Committee (NLAAC) report, Legal Aid for the Australian Community. The report noted the important contribution made by CLCs as part of a national legal aid partnership (with the state-based legal aid commissions and the private legal profession). It recommended increased and fixed triennial funding for CLCs.[11] However, the report also recommended that meaningful and practicable performance indicators for service and operating levels be developed and adopted by all CLCs. Significantly, NLAAC noted the demonstrable cost-effectiveness of CLCs — no doubt a major justification for recommending funding increases.[12]
Before any increase in funding could be justified, the Commonwealth government required an evaluation of CLCs, and accordingly a detailed study of four CLCs in New South Wales and Victoria was undertaken.[13] Underlying this further study, and NLAAC recommendations for accountability requirements and service level performance indicators, was the need to satisfy the demands of public sector managerialism, which placed increased focus on outputs, objectives and measurable accountability. While CLCs may have perceived this as a challenge to their independence,[14] the increased accountability requirements assisted the executive in satisfying the demands of parliamentary and budgetary accountability.[15]
The NLAAC report and the Study of Four Centres were integral in subsequent increases in Commonwealth funding, and by 1993/94, the Commonwealth was allocating $10.8 million to fund 94 CLCs nationally. In May 1995, the Commonwealth government announced in its Justice Statement that it would double funding to the Commonwealth CLC Funding Program. While a change in government and cuts to legal aid resulted in several Justice Statement initiatives not being implemented, those that were included the establishment of five new generalist CLCs in regional areas, four in outer metropolitan areas and the establishment of networks of environmental lawyers, youth lawyers and Women’s Legal Centres. Associated with additional Commonwealth funding were increased accountability requirements for CLCs, in the form of financial and statistical reporting obligations.
There were also other developments. Prior to 1990, there had been no government strategy for the establishment and location of CLCs. CLCs developed in an ad hoc manner based on the community development model and funding was given without attempting to encourage equitable access to CLCs.[16] The NLAAC report recommended that the Commonwealth government take an active leadership role in the planning, funding and managing of legal aid programs nationally.[17] The Justice Statement indicated that the government would assert its leadership role in legal aid service delivery policy.[18] With the new funding came directions from the Commonwealth that a proportion of the additional funding be allocated to centres in rural and regional areas instead of centres that had been operating on a voluntary, unfunded basis.[19] Government was now prepared to intervene directly in identifying local disadvantage and responding in a manner specific to a geographic area, rather than leaving it for the unpredictable forces of the local community to self-identify.
The emphasis on central government authority to oversee the achievement of national legal aid target outputs and the increasing accountability requirements on CLCs all pointed to the corporate managerialism that was dominating public policy at the time. Developments at the state level also reflected this influence. In 1995 the LACV was transformed into ‘a new and more business like corporate body’, Victoria Legal Aid.[20] The previous legal aid commissioners were replaced with a five-member board of directors, with no nominees from the legal profession, CLCs, salaried legal aid staff or the Victorian Council of Social Service, all of whom were previously represented as LACV commissioners.
This period saw CLCs being recognised as a vital and cost-effective part of the legal aid system. Whilst this recognition was rewarded by significantly increased Commonwealth funding, it was also associated with a devaluing of the role of community development and activism in establishing CLCs, as government sought to exercise increased control over the establishment of new services. Furthermore, CLCs were required to be more accountable for their resources, by providing regular financial and statistical reports to program funding managers, to ensure that their target outputs were being achieved. The era of public sector managerialism had reached the CLC sector, and in the name of efficiency, their voice on legal needs would now be heard not though representation at the Board level of legal aid commissions, but through their periodic financial and statistical reports.
The change of federal government in 1996 and the existence of a state government firmly committed to market-based economics combined to produce a strong influence of market governance on the Victorian CLC funding program. Increased Commonwealth control over CLC program development, and increased accountability requirements for CLCs meant that the sector was ripe for such developments. Rather than funding community legal centres, the Commonwealth government viewed itself as the purchaser of community legal services, through service agreements. These service agreements allowed greater direction by the Commonwealth of CLC activity. In particular, all funds received by CLCs were to be spent on the purchased services as outlined in the Service Agreement Strategic Plan.[21]
Combined with this move to a purchaser–provider model, the Commonwealth initiated a new process for the establishment of new CLCs. The Commonwealth would determine the appropriate location of new CLCs based on a process of identifying areas within which there was limited access to services, with a focus on regional Australia. Since 1996, the Commonwealth has announced 11 new CLC services, all in rural and remote areas. The locations for these new services are in regions with few legal service providers and a very limited pool of volunteers. Importantly, the Commonwealth conducted a tender process for these new centres without consultation with the state legal aid commissions, and specified that value for money was the basis for comparing alternative tender proposals.
The community development model of the 1970s and 1980s had, by this stage, been jettisoned in favour of the market model. Community legal services had become a product for which the Commonwealth was seeking the cheapest supplier. The result saw existing CLCs in these rural and regional areas competing in tender processes with other community or church-based welfare organisations with whom they may have previously worked closely. In Queensland, even the state-based legal aid commission submitted a tender (albeit the only one!) to provide community legal services in Western Queensland.[22]
In addition, as this was occurring, the Commonwealth government together with the support of the states, initiated a series of reviews of CLCs in Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. Each review operated on the basis that additional funding for existing CLCs would not be forthcoming, and sought to assess whether CLCs were efficient and whether funding could be more effectively allocated.[23] The Victorian CLC review in particular was required to assess whether legal services were delivered effectively and efficiently, and whether the structure and distribution of CLCs was the optimum model for delivering services.[24] The private consultants who undertook the Victorian review recommended extensive amalgamations of existing CLCs, particularly in metropolitan Melbourne.[25] Similar recommendations in the earlier South Australian CLC review saw CLCs unable to agree on amalgamations, with the result that the new regionalised CLC model of service delivery was achieved through a tendering process. Given this precedent, Victorian CLCs anticipated a similar outcome of service amalgamations and the use of competitive tendering for funding. Existing CLCs were concerned about the prospect of competing with each other, and other community or church-based organisations for service agreements under the new regionalised model. The unexpected election of the Bracks Labor government resulted in the stalling of the Victorian CLC review process, with the eventual result that no CLC was forced to close or amalgamate.[26]
Similar developments occurred in other public programs, where government sought to improve productivity by introducing market systems or quasi-market systems. Considine observes that services which could be privatised during this period were often subjected to market testing through contracting, tendering and internal competition.[27] Problems identified under this model, and their relevance to the CLC sector, include:
• Greater administrative burden to meet planning deadlines, and extensive new demands for documentation and accountability.[28] For CLCs there were additional accountability requirements under their service agreements.
• Community and welfare organisations and similar service providers who previously collaborated and shared information to assist in service delivery for clients became less likely to do so in a competitive market environment.[29] The breakdown of collaborative models which had been developed over 20 years was identified as potentially fatal to the CLC sector and to the wider legal aid system.[30]
• Limitations on the ability of service providers to operate flexibly to best address the needs of service users due to prescriptive service agreements governing the services which had been ‘purchased’.[31] For CLCs flexibility in service provision is essential in dealing with diverse service users, often with complex and multiple disadvantage, and diverse local conditions depending on the community.[32]
In the CLC context, the advent of competitive tendering for new centres and the purchaser provider model presented specific challenges. Many in the sector expected that a process of competitive tendering for funding would result in the law reform advocacy work of CLCs being diminished. The basis of this expectation rested with the belief that in a competitive tendering context, those organisations which tendered to provide a pure casework model, or a casework/community legal education model, would be preferred over those which were also committed to advocating for law reform. It was anticipated that the government would only seek to purchase casework services.[33]
There was also concern that a process of amalgamations and competitive tendering would have a deleterious effect on the significant community volunteer contributions to CLC management and service delivery. These concerns were supported by studies undertaken in Victoria and New South Wales which suggested that approximately one-fifth of volunteers would withdraw their labour if policies of privatisation and competitive tendering were pursued in CLCs. These studies concluded that volunteers contributed their time out of commitment to the principles and work of CLCs, and they were fearful that competitive tendering would result in significant changes to the philosophy and structure of CLCs.[34]
The problem of loss of collaboration with community and welfare organisations in a competitive environment has already been identified. However, as Giddings and Noone observed, potentially more destructive was the deterioration in the relationship between CLCs and legal aid commissions. Nationally CLCs became competitors with legal aid commissions for scarce legal aid funding, with many commissions now operating specialist legal services such as children’s legal services and prisoners’ legal services. Commissions were also placing a greater emphasis on the provision of generic legal information and advice to large numbers of people, and developing ‘self-help’ legal services. A strong feature of CLCs since their inception was their commitment to undertaking innovative community legal education strategies.[35] Rather than promoting collaborative arrangements in the provision of community legal education services, the era of market governance and tendering created a competitive and at times strained relationship between CLCs and legal aid commissions.
As stated, the election of the Bracks Labor government in Victoria tempered much of the move to a market model for community legal service delivery in that state. While the Commonwealth remained committed to a process of competitive tendering for newly funded CLC services, the new state Attorney General was committed to an outcome of the review process whereby no existing CLC would be forced to close, amalgamate or competitively tender for its funding. The new millennium therefore held out some hope for Victorian CLCs.
Between 1999–2000 and 2003–04, state government funding to Victorian CLCs increased by over 82 per cent, from $2.06 million per year to $3.75 million per year. Over this same period, there was only an 8.6 per cent increase in Commonwealth funding to Victorian CLCs. In May 2005, the Victorian government announced a further increase in CLC funding of $2 million per year to cover new CLC services in three disadvantaged metropolitan growth corridors, one new CLC in the Loddon–Campaspe region, and additional funding for existing CLCs. By 1 July 2006, state government funding to CLCs will have increased by over 140 per cent since 1999.
The state government’s commitment to Victorian CLCs is consistent with the issues identified in the Growing Victoria Together (GVT) policy framework launched in 2001. According to Wiseman, GVT is a statement of important issues which need to be addressed in order to remedy some of the economic, social and environmental costs arising from the extreme market-based initiatives of the previous Kennett Liberal government. In particular, the issues of building cohesive communities, reducing inequalities, and promoting rights and respecting diversity were key themes in GVT. Wiseman notes that the government’s efforts in strengthening social inclusion has seen support for a range of community-building programs focused in the state’s most disadvantaged areas.[36]
The re-emergence of community in policy-making is a key element in Third Way politics, which seeks to address many of the shortcomings of state and market based systems of governance. There has been growing recognition that the market-driven policies of the 1990s has resulted in unacceptable consequences of disadvantage and inequality.[37] In particular, there is acknowledgement that these consequences have impacted particularly harshly on some communities more than others, and that there is increasing evidence of clustering of disadvantage around specific groups and places.[38] According to Walsh, the new geography of disadvantage has resulted in place or spatial management emerging as the model by which governments seek to address the problems of disadvantaged people and places. The purpose ‘is to overcome complex, multiple and interdependent problems afflicting specific communities, the causes of which often reside outside those areas, in order to achieve measurable benefits and improved outcomes for people living there.’[39] As Reddell notes, successful area-based strategies entail joined-up government responses, in partnership with local businesses and communities.[40] In Victoria, the Department of Victorian Communities was established in 2002 to provide a whole-of-government focus for strengthening the sustainability and resilience of community infrastructure, relationships and networks.[41] The 2005 statement, A Fairer Victoria, is an example of the Victorian government’s ‘joined-up’ approach to addressing disadvantage in a spatial/area-specific manner.
The decision on location of the new generalist CLCs was made by government, based on measured disadvantage in those specific areas.[42] Not surprisingly, these areas were also targeted in other initiatives. This is different from the model of CLC development in the 1970s and 1980s, which emphasised the importance of a pre-existing voluntary service to respond to local legal need. Whilst there has been a refocusing back to the role of community in addressing disadvantage, there has not been a return to the community development model of the 1970s. The emphasis now is on community renewal and rebuilding.
The Victorian government has exhibited other Third Way principles in its approaches to CLCs by recognising the role of civil society and the importance of partnerships between private law firms and legal aid service providers in the delivery of legal services to disadvantaged people. The ability of CLCs to harness volunteer contribution, has been recognised by both Commonwealth and state governments, and was a key element in the state government’s decision to provide additional resources to CLCs.[43] However, in recent years, there have been several formalised partnerships between large legal firms and CLCs to expand CLC capacity to deliver services. Sometimes referred to as ‘multi-tiered pro bono relationships’ these arrangements have included secondments of legal, para-legal and non-legal staff to CLCs for fixed periods of up to six months, firm involvement on CLC volunteer rosters, financial and in kind donations to support CLCs, and direct financial and non-financial assistance to establish new CLCs.[44]
These developments reflect the growing prominence of corporate social responsibility in the delivery of programs to address disadvantage. Moon notes the increasing institutionalisation of social responsibility into Australian business, with the integration of non-profit, social responsibility oriented activities into the company objectives and its internalisation in corporate culture. Examples offered include fixed budget allocations and procedures for social programs, appointment of personnel with community responsibilities and inclusion of social responsibilities in aspects of a company’s external relations.[45] For large private law firms this has manifested in fixed annual allocations to pro bono activity within the firm’s annual budget, appointment of national and state pro bono coordinators and pro bono committees within firms.[46]
An example of how companies often direct their corporate social responsibility to individual organisations or projects is the priority placed on the legal needs for homeless young people by one law firm which resulted in the establishment of the Victorian Youthlaw service.[47] In Victoria, several law firms agreed to participate in providing legal services at various homeless shelters in metropolitan Melbourne, as part of the PILCH Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic. In support of these initiatives, the state government provided supplementary funding to Youthlaw in 2002 and to the Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic in 2003. Significantly, of the new CLCs to be funded by the state government since 1999, these are the only specialist centres.
Zappala recognises that government has an important role to play in facilitating and developing corporate social responsibility by, amongst other things, ensuring coordination of corporate social responsibility policies and activities, and raising the profile of corporate social responsibility.[48] Both Commonwealth and state governments have facilitated the development of pro bono activities through funding organisations such as the National Pro Bono Resource Centre and the Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic which is heavily reliant on harnessing pro bono services from large private law firms. In addition, the state government announced a pro bono initiative involving a formal scheme to coordinate the secondment of solicitors from private law firms to CLCs and Victoria Legal Aid, with state funding for VLA to coordinate the scheme.[49] The state government also announced in 2002 that legal firms had been appointed to Legal Services Panels entitling them to compete with each other and the Victorian government Solicitor to provide legal services to government departments. A condition of being on the panels was that firms commit to provide pro bono services of at least five per cent of the value of the legal fees they derive under the panel arrangements.
This recent period has seen new actors involved in the policy development of Victorian CLC service delivery. Increased funding from the state government, combined with a renewed focus on community, has diluted much of the monopoly that the Commonwealth government had sought to acquire over CLC policy. In addition, the increasing involvement of private law firms in formalised partnership arrangements means that there is now a diversity of actors who have significant input into the direction of policy with respect to CLCs. This landscape suggests the non-hierarchical connections between the private sector, governments, civic agencies and grass roots voluntary movements which are indicative of the new concept of network governance.[50] However, there are tensions between the various actors. The state and federal governments both contribute substantial funding to Victorian CLCs, yet have different visions as to their direction and the importance of community. In addition, there remain considerable tensions between CLCs and VLA who often still identify each other as competitors for funding. Ultimately the effectiveness of this network will rely on improvements in trust, good will and communication between all the relevant actors.
CLCs grew out of the voluntary efforts of community members in response to the failure of the bureaucratic state to adequately address the legal needs of the disadvantaged. Whilst the advent of government funding enhanced their ability to deliver services, it also entailed a new level of accountability in the form of structured processes of financial and statistical reporting. As governments increasingly recognised the important role played by CLCs in legal service delivery to the disadvantaged, they sought to influence the manner in which CLCs were established and the services which were provided. The progression to a purchaser–provider model, in which the government purchased community legal services via service agreements and put funding for new CLCs out to competitive tender, raised substantial concerns about loss of flexibility in service delivery. There was a loss of collaboration between community organisations and legal service providers, as they anticipated the prospect of tendering against each other. There was also a fear that such a market driven competitive environment would see the loss of the significant volunteer contribution to legal service delivery which has characterised CLCs since their inception.
The election of the Bracks Labor government in Victoria heralded a renewed focus on community as the forum at which disadvantage and inequality is best addressed. Combined with a commitment to Third Way principles of encouragement of community/government/business partnerships and the role of civil society in responding to complex issues of spatial disadvantage and poverty, CLCs have enjoyed something of a renaissance as a result. The ability of CLCs to harness the voluntary efforts of community members and the pro bono resources of the private legal profession make them an attractive third sector organisation to assist in community regeneration and renewal initiatives. It is important that in this era of network governance the community and legal service delivery relationships, which were strained during the strict neo-liberal market era, are repaired. Only then will the networks function in a manner that best serves the legal needs of the disadvantaged in the community.
[*] LOUIS SCHETZER is former Manager of the Law & Justice Foundation of NSW Access to Justice research program and former Policy Officer, Federation of Community Legal Centres.
© 2006 Louis Schetzer
[1] ‘Third Way’ politics has most recently been associated with the Clinton Administration in the 1990s, and the Blair ‘New Labour’ government in Britain. See Anthony Giddens, ‘Introduction’ in Anthony Giddens (ed), The Global Third Way Debate (2001) 5–8.
[2] Jeff Giddings and Mary Anne Noone, ‘Australian Community Legal Centres Move into the Twenty-First Century’ (2004) 11(3) International Journal of the Legal Profession 1, 3.
[3] John Chesterman, Poverty Law and Social Change — The Story of the Fitzroy Legal Service (1996) 11–12, 29.
[4] An often quoted example is the Whitlam government’s Australian Assistance Plan (AAP), which sought to develop locally determined welfare programs combining regional participation in decision-making with control over the administration of social welfare budgets. For further discussion about the AAP, see Tim Reddel, ‘Local Social Governance and Citizen Engagement’ in Paul Smyth, Tim Reddel and Andrew Jones (eds), Community and Local Governance in Australia (2005) 190–1.
[5] Office of Legal Aid and Family Services, Attorney General’s Department, Commonwealth of Australia, Community Legal Centres — A Study of Four Centres in New South Wales and Victoria (1991) 8.
[6] Mary Anne Noone, ‘The Paradox of Government Funding: An Australian Case Study’ (Paper presented at the International Public Legal Service Conference, University of Kent, Kent, 27–30 June 1994) 11.
[7] Office of Legal Aid and Family Services, above n 5, Appendix 1.
[8] Ibid 5.
[9] Mary Anne Noone, ‘Mid-Life Crisis: Australian Community Legal Centres’ [1997] AltLawJl 8; (1997) 22 Alternative Law Journal 25, 27–8.
[10] Chesterman, above n 3, 7–8 and 79.
[11] NLAAC, Legal Aid for the Australian Community: Legal Aid Policy, Programs and Strategies (1990) Recommendations 11(j), 11(k)(i), 11(k)(ii) and 11(k)(iii).
[12] Ibid 166–7 and Recommendations 8(m) (iii), 10(b)(ii).
[13] Office of Legal Aid and Family Services, above n 5.
[14] P Kellow, ‘The NLAAC Report: The Challenge to Community Legal Centres’ (1991) 16(5) Legal Service Bulletin.
[15] R Mulgan and J Uhr, ‘Accountability and Governance’ in G Davis and P Weller (eds), Are you Being Served? State, Citizens and Governance (2001) 152, 164–6.
[16] Noone, above n 6, 11.
[17] NLAAC, Legal Aid for the Australian Community: Legal Aid Policy, Programs and Strategies (1990) Recommendation 4(a).
[18] See Noone, above n 9, 27.
[19] Noone, above n 6, 11.
[20] Legal Aid Commission (Amendment) Bill 1995, Second Reading Speech (3 May 1995) 4, as quoted in Noone, above n 9, 27.
[21] The specified services which were the subject of the new Service Agreement Strategic Plan were advice, advocacy, community legal education and casework with a limited litigation focus.
[22] Giddings and Noone, above n 2, 7.
[23] Ibid 6.
[24] Impact Consulting Group, Review of Victorian Community Legal Centre Funding Program — Final Report (July 1998) 39–40.
[25] Ibid 16–19.
[26] Giddings and Noone, above n 2, 6.
[27] Mark Considine, ‘Market Bureaucracy The Changing Form of Social Administration in Australia’, in A Farrar and J Inglis (eds), Keeping it Together: State and Civil Society in Australia (1996) 76, 82–4.
[28] Ibid 85.
[29] Ibid 88-9; See also T Eardley, ‘Mutual Obligation and the Job Network: The Effect of Competition on the Role of Non-Profit Employment Services’ (2002) 37 Australian Journal of Social Issues 310, 311.
[30] Janet Jukes and Pauline Spencer, ‘Buying and selling justice: the future of CLCs’ (1998) 73 Reform 5, 7.
[31] J Burgess, ‘Economic Perspectives: Reviewing the Model Behind the Job Network’ (2003) 6 Australian Journal of Labour Economics 227, 234.
[32] Jukes and Spencer, above n 30, 8.
[33] Louise Schetzer, ‘Community legal centres and the future of law reform’ (1998) 23 Alternative Law Journal 254, 255; Jukes and Spencer, above n 30, 8.
[34] Sam Biondo, Community Legal Centres and their Volunteers — A Study of Dedication and Commitment (2002) 24–5; Rose Melville, ‘Competitive Tendering and NSW Community Legal Centres — An Exploratory Study’ [2003] AltLawJl 6; (2003) 28(1) Alternative Law Journal 27, 27.
[35] Giddings and Noone, above n 2, 9.
[36] John Wiseman, ‘Designing Public Policy after Neo-Liberalism?’ in Paul Smyth, Tim Reddel and Andrew Jones (eds), Community and Local Governance in Australia (2005) 58–9, 62–7.
[37] Anthony Giddens, ‘Introduction’ in Anthony Giddens (ed), The Global Third Way Debate (2001) 7–8.
[38] D Adams and M Hess, ‘Community in Public Policy: Fad or Foundation?’ (2001) 60(2) Australian Journal of Public Administration 13, 16–17. It should be noted that the focus on place can be at the expense of focusing adequately on the multi-faceted dimensions of poverty and social exclusion; some of the resultant policy initiatives have therefore not adequately targeted intersectional disadvantage (eg homelessness).
[39] Peter Walsh, ‘Improving Governments’ Response to Local Communities: Is Place Management an Answer?’ (2001) 60(2) Australian Journal of Public Administration 3, 4 and 9.
[40] Tim Reddell, ‘Beyond Participation, Hierarchies, Management and Markets: “New” Governance and Place Policies’ (2001) 61(1) Australian Journal of Public Administration 50, 53.
[41] Wiseman, above n 36, 66.
[42] Tony Vinson, Community Adversity and Resilience: The Distribution of Social Disadvantage in Victoria and New South Wales and the Mediating Role of Social Cohesion (2001); Australian Bureau of Statistics, Socio-Economic Indices for Areas (SEIFA) (2001).
[43] Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee Inquiry into Legal Aid and Access to Justice, as quoted in Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee, Final Report: Legal Aid and Access to Justice (2004) [11.6]; Implementation Advisory Group, Review of Commonwealth and State Government Victorian Community Legal Centre Funding Program — Final Report to the Commonwealth and State Attorneys General (May 2001) 29–35.
[44] Jill Anderson (National Pro Bono Resource Centre), Working Together: Multi-tiered Pro bono Relationships between Law Firms and Community Legal Organisations (2003) 6–7, 9–10, 15–16.
[45] J Moon, ‘The Social Responsibility of Business and New Governance’ (2002) 37(2) Government and Opposition 385, 393–4.
[46] Christopher Arup, ‘Pro Bono in the Post-Professional Spectrum of Legal Services’ in Christopher Arup and Kathy Laster (eds), For the Public Good: Pro Bono and the Legal Profession in Australia (2001) 197–9.
[47] J Moon, above n 45, 394.
[48] Gianni Zappala, Corporate Citizenship and the Role of Government: the Public Policy Case, Department of the Parliamentary Library Research Paper No 4 (2003-04) available at <http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2003-04/04RP04.pdf> at 2 August 2006.
[49] Pro Bono Secondments Steering Committee, Pro Bono Secondment Scheme: Report on the 2002-2003 Pilot Scheme (2004).
[50] Mark Considine, Making Public Policy (2005) 129.
AustLII:
Copyright Policy
|
Disclaimers
|
Privacy Policy
|
Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AltLawJl/2006/38.html