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Company no. 2433492 Charity no. 1088588

Law Centres Federation

Report and Unaudited Financial Statements 31 March 2023

Law Centres Federation

Reference and Administrative Details for the year ended 31 March 2023

Company number 2433492 Charity number 1088588 Registered office and operational address 1 Lady Hale Gate Gray's Inn London WC1X 8BS

Executive Officers

The following served on the executive Committee throughout the year: From 1April 2022 to 2 December 2022:

Chair: Helen Rogers Vice Chair: Patrick Marples Vice Chair: Treasurer: Sean Canning Secretary: Victoria Fewkes

Committee Members: Helen Bagley Sophie Brown (co-opted 11April 2022) Sara Chandler Claudia Estephane (until 11 April 2022) Vicky Fewkes Manuela Grayson Ngaryan Higham (Li) Peter Kandler Sue James Pamela Robotham Daniel Scrase (co-opted 11 July 2022) Claire Stern Linda Summers

From 2 December 2022 to 31 March 2023:

Chair: Helen Rogers Vice Chair: Vice Chair: Vicky Fewkes Treasurer: Patrick Marples Secretary: Ngaryan (Higham) Li Committee Members: Helen Bagley Sara Chandler (co-opted on 12 December 2022) Michael Fawole Najwa Hassan Laura Hastie Peter Kandler (co-opted on 12 December 2022) Victor McAllister Lydia Nash Pamela Robotham (co-opted on 12 December 2022) Emma Stradling Linda Summers

On 31[st] March 2023 there were 2 elected vacancies on the committee. The officers and committee members are all members of the Executive Committee.

Members of the charity guarantee to contribute an amount not exceeding £1 to the assets of the charity in the event of winding up. The total number of such guarantees at 31 March 2023 was 41.

Members of the Executive Committee had no beneficial interest in the charity.

Bankers: The Cooperative Bank Islington High Street London N1 9TR CAF Bank 25 Kings Hill Avenue Kings Hill, West Malling Kent, ME19 4JQ Charity BankLtd Fosse House 182 High Street Tonbridge TN9 1BE Independent Examiner: Moore Kingston Smith LLP 6[th] Floor 9 Appold Street London EC2A 2AP

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

The Law Centres Federation is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. It is governed by the Memorandum and Articles of Association created in 1978 and last updated at the 2022 AGM. The company is registered at Companies House, registration number 2433492. The company is also a Registered Charity registration number 1088588.

TheLaw Centres Federation trades as the Law Centres Network (LCN).

The reference and administrative details on page 1 form part of this report.

The Executive Committee, which is also the Board of Directors of the charitable company for the purposes of the Companies Act, submit its annual report and financial statements of the Law Centres Federation for the year ended 31 March 2023. The Executive Committee confirms that the annual report and financial statements of the Law Centres Federation comply with current statutory requirements, the requirements of its governing document, as provided in its Memorandum and Articles of Association, and the provisions of Accounting and Reporting by Charities preparing their accounts in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by FRS 102 Charities SORP.

Election of Directors/Trustees to the Executive Committee and ongoing Training

LCN is governed by an elected Executive Committee which has corporate and legal responsibility for all activities and functions of the organisation.

People are nominated prior to election, or re-election, by member Law Centres at the Annual General Meeting, in accordance with the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Law Centres Federation. This provides for the election of 15 members: five officers, five representatives of member additional Executive Committee members may be appointed by co-option.

The Law Centres Network is committed to ensuring that the membership of the Executive Committee reflects the diversity of its member Law Centres. It annually reviews its composition for diversity as well as the skills of its members to ensure that a balance is maintained of geographic, developmental, financial, legal and management skills across the Executive Committee to enable it to discharge its duties.

An induction event is offered to new Executive Committee members at the beginning of their term of office. All new Executive Committee members receive an induction pack that includes information about the Law Centres Network, and a briefing that outlines the roles and responsibilities of the Executive Committee as both company directors and charity trustees. Recent copies of minutes, management accounts and management reports, together with copies of the Memorandum and Articles of Association, are included in the induction pack. This pack is available online for all committee members.

Charity Governance Code

Throughout the year, trustees are provided with updated information on changes to relevant legislation, their responsibilities as trustees, new guidance provided by the Charities Commission including new guidance in September 2023 on charities use of Social Media, or other relevant information that may assist them to carry out their duties as Trustees. We also provide training on relevant topics and invite speakers to the Board Meetings as part of our ongoing training for trustees.

Trustees are aware of the Charity Governance Code published in 2017 that sets out the principles and recommended practice for good governance within the sector. LCN has reviewed its governance

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

arrangements against the principles within the Code and believes that it is compliant whilst maintaining its need to operate its governance efficiently.

The charity purchased insurance costing £966 included in Support Costs, to protect it from loss arising from neglect or default of the Trustees Directors / Executive Committee members and to indemnify the Trustees against the consequences of neglect or default on their part.

Risk Management

The Executive Committee (EC) has overall responsibility for ensuring that the charity has an appropriate system of controls, financial and otherwise. The system of internal controls is designed to provide assurance that the funds are used in line with its charitable objects, for the purposes for which they were granted and for the public benefit. These controls include:

A strategic plan and an annual budget approved by the Executive Committee.
Regular oversight and consideration by the Executive Committee of financial information, variance from budgets and non-financial performance reports. Delegation of authority and segregation of duties.
Identification and management of risk.

Overall responsibility for the Law Centres Network rests with the Executive Committee. Day-to-day management of the LCN has been devolved to the Director.

The LCN undertakes formal risk management reviews. The Finance sub-committee of the EC has been charged with monitoring risk each quarter to report back to the EC meeting and alert it of any new risks of issues of concern. The Sub-Committee reviews the types of risk the charity faces, prioritising them in terms of potential impact and likelihood of occurrence, and identifying ways to mitigate the risks.

LCN identified the key risk in the coming three years as: securing sufficient core funds particularly given the ongoing impact of inflation, cost of living crisis and ending of multi-year grants; loss of key personnel; and the ongoing difficulty Law Centres, and all across the legal aid sector, have recruiting and retaining suitably qualified staff. The Trustees also consider the potential impact of political instability and a regularly changing policy environment as a risk for both Law Centres and LCN. Mitigations are in place for each of these risks.

The Executive Committee is pleased to report that the internal financial controls conform to guidelines issued by the Charity Commission.

Pay and remuneration of the

key management personnel

All LCN staff including key managers have their salary set against the NJC Pay Scales. New staff starting salary is set at the pay point which most closely matches their job description. Increases to the Award, which occur from time-to-time, are passed on to staff. The Human Resources Sub-Committee of the Executive Committee monitor salary policy and make changes as required.

Public Benefit

The Executive Committee (EC) considers that the activity undertaken to achieve its Vision and Mission are for the benefit of the public. The EC referred to the guidance contained in the Charity general guidance on public benefit including the guidance Benefit: Running a Charity when reviewing its strategic objectives and setting the approach it will take as part of its annual planning process. The EC also reviews progress against the objectives and activity undertaken on a quarterly basis.

LCN's activities benefit the public in 3 ways:

Through working with organisations to establish Law Centre services in new areas, thereby increasing access to free legal assistance for people in financial hardship.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Through providing services to Law Centres that enable them to provide legal services to vulnerable and disadvantaged people in their communities with activities such as assisting with tender preparation and funding bids, training, governance support, facilitating effective collaboration and sharing of resources.
Through policy work that seeks to address the underlying causes of people's legal problems through strategic projects, through responding to consultations, participating in reviews, representing Law Centres with decision makers, and through working to extend the availability of free legal services for disadvantaged people.

LCN reports publicly on its activity and impact in its Annual Review available on our website: http://www.lawcentres.org.uk/policy/papers-and-publications and published with our annual return to the Charities Commission.

Throughout 2022-2023 LCN considered all its activities were for the benefit of the public and were guided by our strategic plan.

Objects and Activities

The Law Centres Federation (LCN) is the national organisation that represents Law Centres. The term Federation.

The objects of the Law Centres Federation (LCN) are:

To relieve charitable need, in particular financial hardship, and in so doing provide assistance to Law Centres and encourage the formation of Law Centres in the United Kingdom
To advance the education of the public by assisting Law Centres in improving and diffusing knowledge of the law and the practice of the law and the administration of justice, having regard especially to those areas or the law which are of particular concern to poor people or are directed to the relief of poverty.

Law Centres are not-for-profit legal service providers, specialising in social welfare law (housing, immigration, employment, welfare benefits, mental health, community care, public law, etc) and related areas of law that affect people in their daily lives, particularly people who are vulnerable and/or economically disadvantaged. Without Law Centres hundreds of thousands of people would have no meaningful access to justice and could not resolve their problems so would be hindered from taking up opportunities.

To become a Law Centre an organisation needs to be vetted by the Law Centres Network, and then voted in by the current membership at a General Meeting. To enjoy the benefits of membership each Law Centre has to comply with membership regulations, including employing at least 2 lawyers and having an independent management committee drawn from the community it serves.

On 31 March 2023 there were 41 Law Centres operating that are members of the Law Centres Network. LCN also has 2 Affiliates. Affiliate status is intended specifically for collegiate law clinics, operated by law and to suggest social welfare law as a career path to a new generation of legal professionals.

The Executive Committee secured resources to employ a Director with 12 staff to implement the strategic objectives in 2022-2023. These are reviewed and agreed each year so that LCN can achieve its vision and mission:

Vision - The Law Centres Network strives for a just and equal society where rights are valued, defended and protected.

Mission - We uphold justice for socially and economically disadvantaged members of society by supporting a national network of Law Centres that use their legal skills as a tool for change and their legal expertise to defend the rights of people in their communities. We represent Law Centres at all levels of government and national forums, we help centres to maximise their potential as sustainable

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

organisations, we initiate new Law Centre services for particularly vulnerable groups, and we champion the Law Centre model. We are the collective voice of Law Centres.

Strategic Goals for 2022-2023

Help Law Centres to thrive
Strengthen the network of Law Centres
Amplify the collective voice of Law Centres

The Law Centres Network acts as a catalyst for activity across Law Centres, working on a national level to reveal injustice, analysing needs and root causes and advocating for change. LCN is uniquely placed to identify what has worked, collect evidence and share that learning across the network of Law Centres and then support other Law Centres to take up proven methods. It drives quality across Law Centres and enables local Law Centres to join together so they can design strategic national responses and exert influence, yet still be embedded in and driven by the needs in their local communities. In this way LCN achieves its charitable objects and its public benefit is produced.

Impact 2022-2023

In early 2019, LCN engaged Social Finance to carry out an external Strategic Review of LCN. Following the strategic review in 2019, Social Finance made recommendations for each of the key components of - strategic plan (2019-2022). In late 2022, LCN again engaged Social Finance to review progress against the recommendations they had made in 2019, but with particular regard to the impact of the pandemic on the support needs of Law Centres.

Social Finance found:

offer from LCN was described as and and was evidently well valued and appreciated. Respondents expressed their gratitude to the team for the hard,

In relation to progress against their 2019 recommendations, they found: of these recommendations were progressed, however, the pandemic hugely impacted the work of LCN as it worked to support Law Centres through the crises - particularly in relation to respond to the increased demand they saw and the changing ways in which they were able to work with

Consequently, at the strategic planning session in March 2023, LCN staff and Executive Committee used impact over 2022-2023. This is reported on below:

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Progress against

Strategic Goals for 2022-2023

Strategic Goal 1 - Help Law Centres to thrive

2022-2023 priorities to achieve the objective to Help Law Centres to thrive were to implement the following programmes of work:

Community Engagement
Law Centre Support
Fundraising for Law Centres
The Box a platform to share resources and learning
Data
Digital

"Whenever we've needed anything, big or small, it's always easy to contact you. Every time I reached out to LCN for support it has been there in spades!"

Community Engagement Programme

This programme aims to support Law Centres to embed themselves in their local community. Every community is a unique eco-system with specific challenges; through this programme we help members to better understand those challenges, build partnerships with local

Our community of practice continued to meet regularly a virtual space where practitioners meet to share their learning and wrestle together with the challenges they face. We supported the group to become peer-led and embraced opportunities to explore the purpose and format of the space, and its relationship to other connected Law Centre work, such as communications.

We have launched a new piece of work which explores the role of their communities. Hub organisations collaborate with other civil society organisations (such as rights, community, and campaigning groups) to help them recognise when, where and how legal action can be used as a tool to achieve social change. LCN is leading on this work, supporting Vauxhall, Suffolk, and Derbyshire Law Centres to explore how they might approach such a model. This started with our launch event in March 2023 where Law Centres developed theories of change and mapped their local civil society communities to identify key partners. Over the next three years, they will work to build collaborative local networks and explore how they can use their legal skills to inform, advise, and represent groups and organisations to achieve meaningful social change. We are grateful to The Baring Foundation for supporting this work, and to DLA Piper for hosting our launch event.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

We also spent time considering our role in community engagement in light of the size of the network and our own resource and capacity (not to mention the increasing demand for Law Centre services, which has a direct impact on their capacity to undertake this and other kinds of non-advice work). We decided to focus our energies where we could have most impact - surfacing good examples and best practice and providing Law Centres with practical guidance to help them develop their own practice. At the end of the year we recruited an Assistant Community Engagement Officer to support this approach, which we have developed during 20222023.

Law Centre Support Programme

"I am ever so grateful of the very good, kind and effective support I received from you and LCN on this (and other) project."

Our core offer of support to our member Law Centres continued throughout the year, including:

Peer support for Law Centre managers - Weekly meetings where senior leaders can connect with colleagues across the network. Our managers tell us this is highly valued as a space to share challenges, seek advice, and celebrate together.
Consultancy Direct support, brokered and funded by LCN, to help resolve a variety of issues related
to:
Project scoping and development
Funding strategy
Financial planning and reporting
Operational policy and procedure
Governance
Managing people
Compliance and quality
Strategic opportunities Convening and consulting with Law Centres to take advantage of regional and national opportunities, such as our work in Family Law (see below)
Coaching More than 75 1:1 sessions between LCN Head of Service Development and senior Law Centre staff to help resolve a variety of operational issues, identify further support needs, and promote wellbeing.
Training 23 training sessions attended by 369 Law Centre staff, volunteers and trustees across 34 Law Centres.

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

These sessions supported Law Centre staff to develop skills across a wide range of topics from paperless working to suicide first aid. Feedback indicates the high quality oftraining delivered:

We also started work on a training calendar for Law Centres, informed by a network wide survey of training needs which captured the views of more than 100 Law Centre staff and volunteers.

"I spend a lot of time telling people why we're a member of the Network - I always feel really well supported"

Law Centre Area The Box

Our area gives Law Centre staff and volunteers easy access to a wide range of resources. More than half of Law Centre staff and volunteers have joined, giving them access to:

137 how-to guides on a range of topics from governance to wellbeing 135 template policies and documents
Bios and contact details for LCN and Law Centre staff
More than 20 discussion groups where practitioners can find support from the peers Detailsof events, training sessions and vacancies from across the network Over 300 grant funding opportunities, curated for Law Centres
Updates from LCN and the wider social justice sector

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Fundraising for Law Centres

As for the entire charitable sector, securing funds continues to be a major challenge for Law Centres. The graph below illustrates the change in Law Centres funds from 2007 to 2022. It shows the considerable drop in legal aid funds and the growing reliance on the support of Trusts and Foundations.

Consequently, providing support to Law Centres to raise funds is a key area of work for LCN. In the past year, the single largest grant funding opportunity for Law Centres this year was the Help Accessing Legal Support programme, administered by the Access to Justice Foundation. We supported 15 Law Centres to apply, brokering 1:1 assistance from our panel of trusted consultants. All 15 applications were successful, bringing more than £700,000 into the network and helping Law Centres to improve access to early legal advice.

In total we supported 17 Law Centres to secure 24 grants totalling £929,305. As always, the support brokered by LCN was very well received:

"We got the grant we asked for. Thanks for prompting us I had lost the will!"

"[The help] was great, I found it a real struggle but was able to do a far better second draft after help. We got what we asked

Data

Data is one of the three essential resources needed by Law Centres, the other two are funds and staff. LCN has a vital role in assisting Law Centres with the collection, protection and use of data. In addition, LCN has its own need for better data and speedier access to current data. Our data journey this year has seen progress on a number of interesting initiatives related to data.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Theory of Change development:

Building on our work last year to improve how we capture and evidence the impact of our work and report progress against our Theory of Change.
Streamlining our CRM to better capture data on our members, our work and our impact.
Building up and documenting our data assets and data flows.
Data Strategy and Maturity
Researching and planning the development of a new data strategy to help build data maturity for LCN and Law Centres over the next 3 years.
Exploring how data apprenticeships can help improve data skills and capabilities for LCN and Law Centres.
Collaborating with other VCS and advice sector organisations to share, learn and engage on data initiatives and improving collection and use of data across the advice sector.
Data Standards and Taxonomies:
Engaging in cross-sector initiatives on developing Data Standards for enquiries and legal provision, resulting in the development of a draft data standard for Law Centre enquiries which we plan to test out in the coming months.
Developing the data architecture and aligning these with Law Centres, and wider Access to Justice data standards, where possible.
Improving use of CMS and digital tools for collection and analysis of legal data:
Advice Pro workshops: developed a series of themed workshops to help Law Centres make better use of Advice Pro e.g. paperless working and court bundling.
Advice Pro developments: working with Law Centres and Advice pro to improve how the system operates e.g. securing a new integration with sharepoint to improve how client files are managed.
Advice Pro Champions: facilitating a Community of Practice, bringing together Advice Pro users from across the network to share, learn and help each other in their use of Advice Pro.
Enquiry Desk: A tool under development to help Law Centres capture enquiry information, including turn-aways. Will lead to better data on types of enquiries and in evidencing demand and need.
Developing Resources:
Guides and Resources: developing guides and templates for Law Centres to support data collection;
Gathering evidence: from Law Centres on barriers to data collection and developing data maturity;
Funding: engaging with conversations with funders and policy makers to advocate for more funding for data work.
GDPR and Security:
GDPR Audit: implementing the recommendations from an independent review last year of our current policies and procedures to identify improvements for compliance and embedding privacy by design principles as our work grows and develops.
Cyber Essentials Plus: achieving Cyber Essentials Plus certification for LCN and six other Law Centres.

Next steps on the data journey

Data is and always will be a journey. Our focus for the coming year is to benchmark our current level of data maturity and finalise our data strategy to take us where we want to be over the next 3 years. We are actively seeking funding to continue our data work with Law Centres and will appoint a new Data Lead to help drive the work forward.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Digital Transformation

The National IT Upgrade Project, funded by Legal Education Foundation, has been running since 2015. It forms part of LCN's wider Digital Transformation initiative to enable Law Centres to embrace digital solutions where relevant, to improve ways of working and improve the experience of clients accessing Law Centre services. It focuses on Digital Infrastructure and facilitating improved ways of working through adoption of cloud technologies and collaborative tools like Office 365 (O365). This involves an audit of existing infrastructure, replacing or updating old or antiquated infrastructure and systems (laptops, equipment, telephone etc.), safe disposal of obsolete equipment (old computers and servers), upgraded networking equipment and capabilities, support to move emails and files into the cloud, as well as training and support to make the most of O365.

Phase 4 of the IT upgrade was successfully completed this year for 8 Law Centres and 1 organisation LCN is supporting on its journey to becoming a Law Centre (North Wales Steering Group). In total over Phase 1 - 4 of the IT upgrade project LCN successfully upgraded 28 Law Centres in 33 locations with over 1000 users.

The work covered the upgrade of computers, installation of Office 365, establishment of secure cloud storage space, networking infrastructure improvement, migration of office data, emails, shared files to new systems, disposal of old hardware, training and ongoing IT support, support on cyber essentials certification and support to Law Centres already in the scheme to secure more affordable replacement equipment post the initial upgrade.
Over 280 more staff, trustees and volunteers now leveraging opportunities for new ways of working, including hybrid working, Teams Telephony and O365 Apps such as Bookings, Power BI and Microsoft Forms. For several Law Centres this was an essential component to being able to engage with the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme.
The benefits of cloud-based working were crucial to adaptation to remote working during Covid-19, and beyond as Law Centre staff have shifted to a hybrid model of working.
Over 340 pieces of new IT equipment provided to Law Centres in Phase 4 (including laptops, desktops, docking stations and monitors); A further 100 pieces of equipment were secured at discounts ranging from 5-20% for Centres already in the scheme who reimbursed LCN for the cost of laptops, desktops etc (net zero cost to the upgrade project).
Networking upgrades and managed switches installed at 10 Law Centres (including some centres for previous phases which were unable to upgrade at the time) leading to improved network monitoring and protection of Law Centre systems, also minimising any risks to business continuity from potential time down;
7 Law Centres have been supported to secure Cyber Essentials Plus certification (funded through IASME / NCSC). LCN has developed answers for the shared Tenant configurations which has made the process of certifying much easier for Law Centres.

In addition:

Better hardware deal negotiated with Dell (up to 20% discount off RRP) through LCN Membership Scheme, open to Law Centres both in and out of the National IT Project Improved IT Support offer negotiated for Law Centres;
Independent audit of security configuration for hardware and O365 ensuring improved security across the O365 Tenant and compliance with best practice;
Updated documentation to support compliance with GDPR;
Improved staff satisfaction, trust and confidence in Law Centre IT system; Reduction in staff time dealing with IT problems leading to improved service to clients;

Law Centres have reported:

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

less worried about risks and business continuity
can explore new ways of working.
reduced costs
improved opportunities to collaborate within the Centre and across the network improved quality of life through flexible working can work more efficiently and effectively indirect knock on effect of improved experience for clients

There are still around 10 Law Centres that have not joined the LCN IT upgrade but could benefit from doing so. Most large funders have stopped investing in IT infrastructure and digital development projects. When funders change their focus it makes it difficult to continue large, strategic projects that require development over an extended period. LCN is looking for replacement funders for this work but capital funding is very limited.

In the meantime, we will continue to offer Law Centres discounted equipment through the Dell Member scheme and continue to offer training and opportunities to share how others are embracing Office 365 to explore different ways of working with clients, within individual Law Centres and across the Law Centres Network. Law Centres in the tenant have been advised to budget for future upgrades as the lifespan of equipment is only between 3-5 years and can quickly become date ~~d.~~

Snapshot of analytic data from Microsoft 365

The Back-Office Salesforce Project

During the year, LCN completed the Pilot phase of its back-office project with three Law Centres. This was a test and learn approach to explore introducing Salesforce to manage back-office functions like grant, contact and volunteer management, as well as HR and other office management related tasks.

LCN took on the research, design, scope and configuration work in Salesforce, and brought in consultancy to act as a sounding board for best-practice and for developer support to package up what had been built to allow it to be deployed into individual Law instances of Salesforce.

The ethos of this pilot project was to roll out the package to three Centres, letting LCN understand whether it will help Law Centres, and whether it will make enough of a difference to justify rolling it out across the wider Network. It also allows LCN to understand how to support the process, both in implementation and after handover to the Law Centre.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Since the pilot launch at the start of 2023, Law Centre users have been getting to grips with the Salesforce experience of Salesforce and were impressed by the ability to streamline previously admin-heavy tasks such as recording annual leave and HR information and creation of funding pipeline reports for trustees.

showed reports features to my colleague who is involved in writing reports each month on our funding pipeline I built her a quick report, hit the refresh button and magically all the latest funding data appeared in the report -

Users are reporting other benefits such as:

Minimising risk and increasing efficiency
Improved collaboration and reduction of duplication
Centralised systems and more paperless working Improved intelligence on operations and office management Improved security and compliance with regulation Improved systems and processes for succession planning

-reference this. We met with our accountant and were able to pull off all the financial info in seconds which was

most helpful thing for HR has been managing the annual leave records. All records are up-todate, in one place and so much easier than managing a million different spreadsheets! It makes

Users who had been struggling to move away from paper are being converted to this new way of working, as LCN have ensured that stakeholders have been brought along for the journey through user-led design. had the opportunity to define what they want to ensure that the system will meet their needs. The design

been dictated to them, as key stakeholders have had input throughout. As LCN have let users shape the solution themselves, they feel ownership and excitement for how this can make their lives easier, and how this will improve frontline service delivery. Their continued feedback will allow LCN to further improve the package. Next stage is to roll out the tool to more Law Centres.

LCN is now working with the Justice Innovation Group to bring together a Salesforce advice sector user group to explore approaches for using Salesforce for back-office and front line support, and to share learning and opportunities for data collection and tech development with our advice sector colleagues.

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

EnquiryDesk

Two Law Centres continued to use this web browser-based digital tool as part of our pilot. EnquiryDesk assists Law Centres to better manage enquiries received through multiple channels: telephone, email, SMS or in person. Our digital funding from the National Lottery has come to an end but we will continue developing the tool as soon as we get more funding so we can roll EnquiryDesk out to other Law Centres that have already shown interest.

Key benefits include:

Voice calls (incoming/outgoing/voicemails) and emails (incoming/outgoing) can be dealt with in one single tool that can be used by several staff simultaneously
Person-centred tool that captures and keeps a history of contacts made so clients do not need to repeat themselves and staff know the status of the enquiry at any given time
Increased efficiency and quality of client contact, no clients fall through the net and Law Centre response is more consistent (use of reply templates)
Passive collection of enquiries high level statistics and easy monitoring of enquiry volume and type that allows better allocation of resources by management

Other Digital

LCN continued its work on digital development in 2022-2023. As funding ended the pace slowed but LCN is actively fundraising to ensure the progress made is not lost. The next steps are:

Review and revise the Law Platform / Members Area / The Box Next phase of development for Enquiry Desk Roll out The Back-Office tool to more Law Centres
Continue to work with Law Centres to identify new tools that would assist Continue to provide training and assistance around data and digital
Maintain our IT support contract with Aspira Cloud and maintain our 365 Tenant Continue to fundraise for further hardware upgrades.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Strategic Goal 2 - Strengthen the network of Law Centres

Who contacts LCN What we see

Each week LCN receives around 70 enquiries from people searching for legal assistance. The number of people contacting LCN continues to increase as a consequence of the reduction in lawyers providing legal aid (particularly in the area of immigration) and the reduced capacity of other agencies to assist. Although LCN cannot provide advice, and all our messaging is clear about this, people are so desperate in their search for help that they try us anyway. Below is a snapshot of what LCN sees:

Enquiries to LCN 01/04/2022 31/03/2023

TYPE OF ENQUIRY
Advice enquiries	3599
Media enquiries	7
Setting up a Law Centre	9
Volunteering	68
BY AREA OF LAW
Crime	3%
Employment	9%
Family	7%
Housing	10%
Immigration	40%
Welfare benefits	3%
Several areas of law	4%

Strategic national projects

A national Family Law service

"Thank you! an excellent model for service design/improvements in a collaborative way."

This year our members identified the lack of access to specialist legal advice on family matters as a real problem across our network. In response we brought together managers, solicitors, paralegals, trustees and triage workers from 19 Law Centres to explore the problem further.

We moved through a series of in-person service design workshops and online discussions where we used creative techniques to help us explore the challenges and potential solutions. We still need to work out which

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

of the ideas below we can put into practice and test, but the approach we adopted was very effective at engaging people around the problem.

Attendees highlighted the benefits of coming together in person for more creative tasks, the benefits of just being together, their learning from the approach, and how their creative thinking increased during the process.

"Thank you for paying for our time to do this. The process was valuable and so many places take our feedback and time totally for granted. It's really appreciated!!"

grateful for Mischon De Reya for supporting this work.

Overcoming language barriers for victims of crime The Bell Foundation

Purpose: The project seeks to address the problem of barriers in access to justice and services faced by victims of crime who have English as another language.

Progress:

needed more attention than initially envisaged because, as became clear early on, there was considerable resistance to it from the police forces approached: only 1 in 7 forces answered the questions in full. Most requests were initially refused, in whole or in part, and required specific responses, devised with our pro bono partners Allen & Overy, in order to get sufficient information for compiling a national picture of how forces approach ESOL as a vulnerability.

The emerging picture, while incomplete, is instructive and valuable in introducing new data into the professional discourse, that in itself is a baseline marker for prospective changes. Earlier this summer we have presented the initial findings to the Foundation and discussed ways forward. We are in the process of drawing up a report on the findings and their analysis which we will combine with case studies from the two participating Law Centres. The report will make recommendations on how police forces can improve their understanding of ESOL as a vulnerability in victims of crime, along with the support they provide to victims.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

This report is also set to be a contribution to wider issues that were at the heart of our victims of crime project from the outset. Over the duration of this project, themes such as police accountability, structural problems in forces that drive discrimination (such as racism), and protecting the data held on victims and witnesses (given recent revealing breaches), have all grown in importance and urgency.

While this was not part of the original plan, we are glad that he report and some its components is also set to contribute to the Bell parliamentary advocacy work. Specifically, it will be used to support efforts to get the right to understand and be understood and the duty and funds to ensure it is upheld enshrined in statute and not only in the Victims Code.

In other project work, this year we have also continued sharing intelligence with victims organisations such as Rape Crisis England and Wales around victims policy developments. In particular, we were keen see the government expand its thinking on supporting victims of domestic violence beyond IDVAs and toward legal advice as well, as the two perform different functions for distinct purposes. Unfortunately, this promising prospect has come to nought, with political changes leading the government to take a more restricted approach and fall out with its own Victims Commissioner, who resigned in protest.

We have also continued to encourage our members to better target services at victims of crime with ESOL. Reflecting on earlier periods in the project, we have devised a toolkit to provoke Law Centres to think through how VoC services might fit within their current service offering and what additional outcomes they might help them achieve. In December, at our racial justice-themed annual conference, we again examined, from several angles, the practical touchpoints that particularly affect racialised communities and potential partnerships to address them, such as with organisations like Black Europeans.

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Network growth new Law Centres

After nearly 20 years and despite the best efforts of its staff and trustees, supported by the LCN team, our Isle of Wight Law Centre sadly closed at the end of March 2023. We salute the commitment and perseverance of the team, trustees and volunteers, who had kept services going for so long and in such tough circumstances. The Law loss will be keenly felt among its peers in the Law Centres movement. However, it is the local been a lifeline and a beacon of support for vulnerable local people in very difficult times and many will struggle without the support it has given in the past.

In more positive news, we welcomed North Yorkshire Citizens Advice & Law Centre as the newest member of our network in December 2022. The benefits to local people of a Citizens Advice also becoming a Law Centre are obvious. As a combined service, they enjoy both a breadth of issues that they can get help with and a depth of support with common legal problems. Along with its eight permanent offices from Skipton to Scarborough, NYCALC offers outreach services in a further 23 locations.

We also continued to work with a number of organisations who are moving towards applying for membership in 2023/24 including in North Wales, Leicestershire, Leeds, London, Oxfordshire and Norfolk.

Bringing the network together Communities of practice / interest groups

"Thank you to all at LCN for all your ongoing support and guidance, you have brought all of us together and continued to push forward

We migrated our email groups to Microsoft 365 to make the most of its integration and functionality and have continued setting up additional groups for new areas of interest, practice or projects to facilitate communication between our Members. We currently have over 25 private groups (some with a dedicated Sharepoint site) where members can ask questions, share best practice, discuss challenges and opportunities and connect with other colleagues across the Network. Our most active group (Housing) includes over 100 Law Centres practitioners.

Workforce Development

Building on the scoping work of the previous year, funded by the Legal Education Foundation, we continued exploring the challenges Law Centres face in this area. We consulted with Law Centre and sector colleagues, as well as raising the issues with funders, the Legal Aid Agency, and others. As a result of our improved understanding of the challenges and possible solutions, we were able to secure multi-year funding to work with five London Law Centres over the next 3 years. This will allow us to recruit and develop a cohort of trainee solicitors to increase access to justice in London while testing new approaches to staff recruitment, training and retention. We are grateful to Propel for supporting this work.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Although the lessons learned through the above will be applied across the network, we are conscious that Law Centres outside London face different challenges. We remain committed to meeting this need and will be seeking additional funding for this work in 2023/24.

Wellbeing - Employee Assistance Programme

LCN continued to offer this programme to all Law Centres staff, trustees and volunteers (and their immediate family members) to help them deal with personal and professional problems. The service provides confidential advice and guidance (24/7 free phone number) on a variety of issues ranging from life and bereavement support, legal and medical information, online CBT. It also includes access to a wellbeing portal and app.

Breakdown of assistance requested:

Counselling 63.9% Anxiety 39% Low Mood 21% Depression 21%
Legal Advice: 34% Civil 46% Employment 23% Criminal 15%.

Tackling Systemic Racism - Strengthening Diversity

-committee continued to meet and discuss options for monitoring and strengthening diversity within Law Centres. However, it was acknowledged that LCN needs to do more and that LCN should work towards becoming an anti-racist organisation. Consequently, one strand of the Workforce development programme will focus particularly on improving opportunities for people from Black and Racialised communities in Law Centres. The Annual Conference focused on Racial Injustice, reported on below.

In April we presented our Racial Justice workplan to Law Centres for discussion and approval.

The plan has 5 strands:

Workforce development, creating new opportunities, run masterclasses
New and extended services in discrimination and other targeted service
Building new partnerships and strengthening existing ones
Advocacy, including Windrush Justice
Collect the data, build the evidence

The immediate priority is to get funds to fully implement the programme. Meanwhile we are focussing on the aspects where LCN and Law Centres are already working e.g. Windrush justice and with existing partners.

2022 Annual Law Centre Conference

In December, LCN hosted our Law Centres Annual Conference Justice and the role of Law Centres in dismantling systemic over 3 days (2 online and 1 in person). We upgraded the

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

platform that LCN had designed and developed in-house a year prior so details for future events can be updated by LCN staff without having to rely on a develop. The design for this conference was specifically created by an external cooperative of Black designers.

The online conference included 5 Plenaries on income, housing and health inequality, dismantling systemic racism and campaigning, an interactive session on how to gather evidence and a conversation with Ben Crump and Jasmine Rand, American attorneys representing the families of people killed by police, class actions and challenging racist decisions.

455 colleagues attended the online sessions and 83 participated in the 4 workshops held in person, which focused on what Law Centres can do in practice to help dismantle systemic racism.

Governance

We have continued to successfully use our dedicated Executive Committee Sharepoint to share, in an easier and more secure way, all the relevant documents (meeting agendas/papers and minutes of previous meetings), resources (eg new induction pack) and links to forms (eg declaration of interests), becoming de facto paperless.

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

We have been holding hybrid meetings, prioritising attendance in person but also allowing remote attendance for those unable to travel.

Strategic Goal 3 - Amplify the collective voice of Law Centres

Policy and advocacy

Engagement is not just on policy but on how it is delivered: "You and the rest of LCN making my job much easier as usual!"

In this last year of the pandemic, public attention has turned to its aftermath, in which hardship became much more widespread, driven in part by a global energy crisis. Growing indebtedness has been leading people and households into more legal problems, increasing not just the need for assistance but its urgency and desperation.

Especially now, people in legal need deserve better support than the patchy, under-resourced public provisions - - Byrne MP, speaking of his local Law Centre). The main part of the work focused on our justice system, including courts, legal aid and other legal assistance. Among our access to justice workstreams:

Ensuring that renters can still sue landlords for neglecting their home: together with partners Legal Aid Practitioners Group, Housing Law Practitioners Association and campaigners Generation Rent, we pushed back against Fixed Recoverable Costs reform and got a two-year reprieve, which we hope to use to make the housing exemption permanent. If we did not get this reprieve, the policy change would have led renters to struggle to find legal assistance with challenging neglectful landlords. Disrepair is a big problem, affecting 1 in 7 of all rented homes.
Getting legal aid to work better for preventing home loss: this year a change of policy was announced, reintroducing earlier legal advice for people who are at risk of losing their home. We had been advocating for some elements of the new policy for some time, and continued to engage with the Legal Aid Agency on the practical details of the Home Loss Prevention Advice Scheme. We then supported member Law Centres to bid for local delivery of the scheme, and they continue to make up 1 in 5 of all providers.
Advocating for simpler and more inclusive legal aid means test: advocacy on this issue has gone on for three years and concluded with a formal consultation on the proposed changes, some of them we had advocated for, that are estimated to make 2 million more people eligible for civil legal aid.
Working toward a systemic overhaul of civil legal aid: by summer 2021, committee pronounced civil legal aid too far gone for minor tweaks and in need of an overhaul. By then we had been lobbying the government and its scrutineers for this change for some time. At long last, in late January the government has announced its Review of Civil Legal Aid, with which we have been engaging extensively since. Another review that we had had in our sights, by the National Audit Office, has also been launched in the spring and is already benefiting from our input.
Court reform and diversion to other channels for resolving disputes: the government has long signalled that it is interested in ways of cutting down the court backlog by diverting most civil law disputes to ombuds schemes or mediation, which run the risk of also reducing the legal assistance that people in need are offered. This year we have sought to challenge its assumptions by advocacy through its project quantifying the cost of civil disputes.
Introducing new and better ideas into currency: this year we have collaborated with Warwick Law School on a series of public events dedicated to legal that were also edited into podcast episodes. We have also been seeking to shape the justice agendas of the Opposition and have taken part in discussions with the shadow justice secretary and other members of the shadow cabinet.

housing, immigration and human rights. Throughout this work, we have taken care to weave our

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

communications with the experiences of our Law Centres and their clients, that gives us our standing in these debates:

Housing law and rights: this year our involvement in the Renters Reform Coalition has become Renters (Reform) Bill currently before parliament. We have also been supporting member Law policy and community engagement work, briefing and advising them and involving them in the joint campaign.
Human rights: all year long we were preoccupied by the progress of the Bill of Rights Bill, that threatened to repeal and replace the Human Rights Act and devalue human rights in the UK. We were very pleased to ease off our joint campaign work on this when, following ministerial changes, the Bill was deprioritised and subsequently scrapped.
Immigration: the government has repurposed some of the Bill of Rights Bill provisions in the Nationality and Borders Act and the subsequent Illegal Migration Bill (aka the small boats bill). Both bills promise migrants access to legal aid if they face removal, but we have been briefing parliamentarians about the many pitfalls of that false promise. We also continue to campaign for more family-friendly immigration policies and for lifting the ban on asylum seekers working as they wait for their cases to be decided.
turns in life. As part of our dedicated project, to understand and expose just how poorly ESOL as a vulnerability is treated by UK police forces, we have made Freedom of Information requests with every force and are analysing the results. The intention is to use this to press for greater accountability by the forces, and to support the inclusion of the right to understand and be understood in law, in the new Victims and Prisoners Bill.

In numbers

2 research reports that we contributed evidence to
3 open discussions co-organised on reclaiming access to justice
6 ministers and shadow ministers met
7 joint public statements with campaigning partners
13 oral or written policy submissions made

In other words

"Working with LCN has been so encouraging and it seems like you all led with boldness not reticence or fear. Hope to see more of this approach in the space, don't think we can afford to mince words and actions with the world being as it is."

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Communications

This year, thanks to increased communications capacity, we have allowed ourselves to set more ambitious priorities. These priorities have aimed at making our output more engaging, more distinct and more consistent, that is, along recurring themes.

their perspective. We have also sought to make our content more engaging by creating and using more visual assets. Additionally, we have looked to develop the community of practice of Law Centre staff with communications responsibilities.

More people: humanity is at the heart of Law work and we are keen to highlight this, pay tribute to frontline Law Centre staff and volunteers, and in particular get more exposure for own voices.
More issues: the appointment of first full-time Communications Officer has allowed us to produce more campaign-oriented content, as well as to take part in more campaigning events. This has included a Day of Action from the Reform Coalition, and a roundtable on noting a decade since the civil legal aid cuts of 2013 by Legal Action Group.
More of our members: we have been featuring much more content about Law Centres, their work, their positions and their successes.
More visually engaging: we have been developing a suite of new assets for use in social media and in other contexts. This, together with the dedicated capacity, has allowed us to increase out social media output, even it out and increase its reach.
More distinct: in the run-up to an imminent website relaunch in August 2023, we have been working with designers on a should update our visual identity while adhering to the core of what people already know us for.
More networked: we continue to support the community of practice of Law Centre staff members with communications responsibilities. This year has seen three network-wide meetings and an increase in media requests shared through the dedicated emailing list. These have been instrumental for Law Centre input to influence our communications work. We also launched the comms SharePoint portal, where the network can share communications resources, tools and updates. Overall, Law Centres are able to more easily and more regularly share relevant material, which we are then able to use as online content and as evidence in our advocacy work.
new website will be launched in October 2023.

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

In numbers:

1 news media appearance a week on average, with LCN accounting for a quarter of them
4 in 5 media appearances were in national rather than local outlets
25% more Law Centre news features on our website this year, showing the value of legal advice and celebrating successes
8% increase in subscribers to our supporters newsletter.
37% increase in our social reach on Facebook and LinkedIn (old Twitter/X data unavailable

The Future - the next 10 years

The simple reality is that the speed of change is such that detailed planning for any longer than 6-12 months is often of very limited value as the staffing, funding, political and technological environment

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

changes at a pace which means that strategic and operational planning need to be agile and adaptable (to ensure that opportunities are taken and that risks are managed and mitigated).

For this reason, LCN has changed its approach to business planning. Instead of annual reviews, we have implemented a 6 monthly review process. At each review, detail for the coming six months will be updated and the plan will be extended so that it always looks at least three years into the future.

In December 2019 LCN set out a longer term (10 years) outlook for Law Centres and for LCN. This gives us a clear sense of direction and aspiration. In early 2023 we reviewed the 10 year outlook.

Our 10 year ambition is that we will work towards:

The national network of Law Centres will have grown to at least 50 Centres;
All Law Centres will be resilient and secure with access to the latest technology and able to meet community needs and expectations;
Law Centres will be recognised as rights-based organisations working with local communities to use the law as a tool for change;
LCN will remain at the heart of the network providing an increased range of support services to Law Centres and recognised nationally as the voice of Law Centres and a champion for access to justice and social change.

The next 3 years

The following recommendations were made by Social Finance following their review earlier in the year and consultation with Law Centres. LCN is currently developing a new 3 year strategic plan based on the updated Theory of Change that will incorporate the recommendations below:

Funding: Help to identify sources of funding outside of legal aid and coordinate funding applications.
Workforce development: LCN to assist Law Centres manage the staffing challenges informed by the needs of the centres. This could include support for recruitment, succession planning; developing relationships with universities/schools and benchmarking data on Law Centre pay scales.
Collaboration: LCN to continue to support more cross-centre collaboration in Law Centres. Ensure all LC staff are aware of LCN offering.
Advocacy: Make a louder policy push to gain uprated Legal Aid contract fees.
Impact: Support Law Centres to articulate succinctly the impact of Law Centres work in ways that appeal to funders, including storytelling linked to data and focus on the client perspective.
Community: Build on current work with Law Centres to be embedded (organisationally connected and visible to those in need) in the service of their communities.
IT, Data and Digital: Offering IT and digital training opportunities to meet the needs of those who are less skilled in this area. Continue to develop the digital programme. Work to develop data maturity across the network.

The Year Ahead - 2023/2024

Following the external review of LCN and the continued focus on our new Theory of Change, in 20232024 LCN aims to continue to work towards the following 3 objectives:

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Help Law Centres to thrive getting more help to people in need
Strengthen the network of Law Centres solving bigger problems together
Amplify the collective voice of Law Centres speaking out for change

Fundraising Practice

As for many charities, raising voluntary funds from trusts, foundations and individuals is a vital source of income for LCN, enabling us to fulfil our charitable objectives as effectively as possible. We are very grateful for the support given by all our donors.

LCN believes that fundraising should be an open, honest and respectful process. We aim to build and maintain solid partnerships with our supporters and donors, based on mutual understanding and shared values. In developing our approach to fundraising we have taken account of the Code of Fundraising Practice issued by the Fundraising Regulator. LCN is registered with the Fundraising Regulator.

LCN operates with a small internal fundraising team. In addition to this, we engaged external consultants to assist us with our 50th Anniversary fundraising campaign. LCN does not, nor will not, engage in face-to-face or telephone fundraising. LCN has received no complaints about its fundraising activities either during the financial year or subsequently.

GDPR

LCN continues to monitor our compliance with GDPR. LCN's Privacy Policy, published on our website, clearly states what personal data LCN will hold in relation to supporters and how this data will be used. It also sets out how individuals can raise concerns or complaints. In 2022 -2023, we reviewed our compliance with GDPR and continue plan to monitor our data protection procedure and privacy policy.

Financial review

The total net outgoing resources for LCN were (£156,667) (2022: outgoing resources (£169,509)).

LCN had a net deficit on unrestricted funds of (£199,289). Together with the accumulated surplus brought forward from previous years, the charitable company now has unrestricted funds of £112,845 (2022 £312,134).

Our main source of unrestricted funds continues to be from subscriptions from Law Centres and donations. In addition, a contribution this year of £9,470 (2022: £0) as gifts-in-kind was generously provided by several law firms.

Restricted funds carried forward at 31 March 2023 amounted to £167,970 (2022: £125,345) This is sufficient for the activities for which the funds were provided.

Reserves policy

The Executive Committee has considered the following factors when considering a reserves policy: the contractual obligations to its staff in terms of parental rights, sickness pay and redundancy provisions;
the obligation to maintain a safe and clean working environment;
that certain equipment is essential for our work;

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

that an increasing proportion of the income is now derived from fixed term project grants.

The Executive Committee agreed that LCN should aim to maintain unrestricted funds equal to six core service running costs. This amounts to £228,930. The current level of unrestricted reserves is £112,845, at Balance Sheet date. This is sufficient for LCN to run for 3 months.

The level of unrestricted reserves and available cash is sufficient for LCN to meet its obligations should it cease trading. The Executive Committee has budgeted to break even in the coming year. With the award of new multi-year grants, the EC anticipates that they will achieve a small surplus in 2024 - 2025 and will be able to rebuild reserves to the level they believe is prudent given the current circumstances in the UK.

Going Concern

At its meeting on 10 July 2023, the Executive Committee considered whether LCN will be a going concern for the coming twelve months. The EC was provided with draft end of year accounts, Quarter 1 2023/2024 Management Accounts including the Balance Sheet, revised budget (2023-2024) with cash flow projections to June 2024 and LCN Fundraising Strategy. They also considered Charity Commission Guidance as well as Guidance from the Auditors.

The EC discussed whether LCN has sufficient reserves to cover its liabilities should it have to close; they assessed whether the documents indicated that LCN is on sound financial footing for the immediate future. They considered the Reserves policy, how LCN manages its finances, its staffing requirements, its charitable objects, its strategic plan, its obligations to funders, the safeguards it has in place to protect against fraud, its leases and premises, and our current banking arrangements. Importantly the Committee considered the current funding climate. They asked whether LCN is robust enough to address unexpected situations. Finally, they discussed the likelihood of the number of Law Centres increasing or decreasing in coming years and what impact that would have. It was also asked whether LCN had considered merging with other charities. It was agreed that the Finance Sub-Committee should monitor cashflow and funding opportunities on a regular basis alongside the finance reports. It was agreed to review going concern at the EC meeting in October when results of 3 funding applications should be known.

The Executive Committee agreed that LCN is a going concern until the end of 2024. They also noted that if two of its funding applications are successful, then its financial position is likely to be stronger in 2024-2025.

Statement of Trustees Responsibilities

The trustees (who are also directors of the Law Centres Federation for the purposes of company law) applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice) including FRS 102.

Company law requires trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of the affairs of the charitable company and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
make judgements and estimates that are reasonableand prudent;

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and
prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charitable company will continue in business.

The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

In so far as the trustees are aware:

there is no relevant information of which the charitable company's independent examiner is unaware; and
the trustees have taken all steps that they ought to have taken to make themselves aware of any relevant information and to establish that the charitable company's independent examiner is aware of that information.

The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Events since the end of the year

In the opinion of the Executive Committee no event since the balance sheet date significantly affects the company’s financial position. However, the Executive Committee is continually monitoring LCN's current and future finances.

Having carried out a detailed review of the Charity's resources and the current economic challenges facing both the Charity and its members, together with the review of Going Concern discussed above, the Trustees are satisfied that the Charity has sufficient cash flows to meet its liabilities as they fall due for at least one year from the date of approval of the financial statements.

Approved by the Executive Committee on 16 October 2023 and signed on its behalf by:

.................................... Helen Rogers Chair of Trustees

Law Centres Federation

Independent Examiners Report for the year ended 31 March 2023

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF LAW CENTRES FEDERATION

I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of the charitable company for the year ended year ended 31 March 2023.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity’s trustees of the Company (and also its directors for the purposes of company law) you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 (‘the 2006 Act’).

Having satisfied myself that the accounts of the Company are not required to be audited under Part 16 of the 2006 Act and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of your charity’s accounts as carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the 2011 Act’). In carrying out my examination I have followed the Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5) (b) of the 2011 Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

Since the Company’s gross income exceeded £250,000 your examiner must be a member of a body listed in section 145 of the 2011 Act. I confirm that I am qualified to undertake the examination because I a member of The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants which is one of the listed bodies.

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe:

accounting records were not kept in respect of the Company as required by section 386 of the 2006 Act; or
the accounts do not accord with those records; or
the accounts do not comply with the accounting requirements of section 396 of the 2006 Act other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination; or
the accounts have not been prepared in accordance with the methods and principles of the Statement of Recommended Practice for accounting and reporting by charities applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102).

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed:

Name: James Saunders, FCCA DChA

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants: Address: 9 Appold Street, London, EC2A 2AP

Date: 22 November 2023

Law Centres Federation

Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account)

For the year ended 31 March 2023

Note Income and Endowments Donations 2a Charitable activities 2b Investments Other 2c Total Expenditure on: Raising funds Charitable activities 3 Total Net income/(expenditure) Net movement in funds 10 Reconciliation of funds: Total funds brought forward 10 Total funds carried forward	Restricted £ 36,226 483,260 - - 519,486 - 476,864 476,864 42,622	Unrestricted £ 133,018 245,426 169 14,492	2023 2022 Total Total £ £ 169,244 159,847 728,686 893,971 169 37 14,492 3,753 912,591 1,057,608 43,475 33,064 1,025,783 1,194,053 1,069,258 1,227,117 (156,667) (169,509) (156,667) (169,509) 437,482 606,991 280,815 437,482
		393,105
		43,475 548,919
		592,394
		(199,289)
	42,622 125,348 167,970	(199,289)
		312,134
		112,845

All of the above results are derived from continuing activities. There were no other recognised gains or losses other than those stated above.

The accompanying notes form part of these financial statements.

Law Centres Federation Balance sheet

As at 31 March 2023

Fixed Assets Note £ Tangible Fixed Assets 9 1,047 Current assets Debtors 7 144,063 Cash at bank and in hand 295,756 Total Current Assets 439,819 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 8 (160,051) Net current assets Net Assets Funds Restricted funds In surplus 10 Unrestricted funds: General fund 10 of which designated Total funds	2023 £ 1,047 279,768	2022 £ 2,254 2,254 163,970 410,923
144,063 295,756
439,819 (160,051)		574,893 (139,665) 435,228 437,482 125,348 312,134 62,253

	280,815
	167,970 112,845 20,593
	280,815	437,482

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the provisions of Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

For the year ending 31st March 2023 the company was entiltled to exemption from Audit under section 477 of the companies Act 2006relating to small companies. The members have not required the conmpany to obtain an audit of accounts for the year in question accordance with section 476.

The directors acknowledge their responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the of the Act with respect to accounting records and the preparation of accounts .

Approved and authorised for distribution by the Executive Committee on 16th October 2023 and signed on its behalf by

Helen Rogers Patrick Marples Chair Treasurer

The accompanying notes form part of these financial statements.

Company no. 2433492

Law Centres Federation

Cash Flow Statement

For the year ended 31 March 2023

For theyear ended 31 March 2023
	Note			2023	2022
				£	£
Cash flows from operating activities:
Net cash used in operating activities	15			(115,336)	(154,362)
Cash flows from investing activities:
Interest income				169	37
Purchase of property, plant and equipment				-	(767)
Net cash provided by/(used in) investing activities				169	(730)
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the reporting period				(115,167)	(155,092)
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the reporting	period			410,923	566,015
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the reporting period				295,756	410,923
Analysis of cash and cash equivalents
				2023	2022
				£	£
Cash in hand				295,756	410,923
Total cash and cash equivalents				295,756	410,923
		1	April		31 March
Analysis of changes in net debt			2022	Cash flows	2023
			£	£	£
Cash		410,923		(115,167)	295,756
Total	410,923			(115,167)	295,756

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

1.1) Accounting policies

Basis of Preparation

a) The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102), published on 16 July 2014. The Charitable Company is a public benefit entity for the purposes of FRS 102 and therefore the charity also prepared its financial statements in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (The FRS 102 Charities SORP), the Companies Act 2006 and the Charities Act 2011.

The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the company. Monetary amounts in these financial statements are rounded to the nearest pound.

b) Voluntary income is received by way of donations and gifts and is included in full in the statement of financial activities when there is entitlement, it is measurable and receipt is probable. Intangible income is recognised as a gift in kind where the provider of the service has incurred a financial cost and is valued at the value to the charity. Income is deferred when it relates to a specific later period, or there are conditions yet to be fulfilled for entitlement.
c) Subscription income from Law Centre members is recognised in the year in which it relates.
d) Gifts in Kind reflect the costs of rooms, catering and staff support from Law Firms and other suppliers to promote seminars, training and advice sessions conducted by Law Centres Federation as well as pro bono legal advice provided to LCF. Gifts in Kind are either valued by the suppliers undertaking the work or, where this is not immediately obtainable, by taking a reasonable estimate of the length of time involved in doing the work multiplied by the Standard London pro-bono rate.
e) Grants are recognised in full in the statement of financial activities in the year in which they are receivable.
f) Resources expended are recognised in the period in which they are incurred. Resources expended include irrecoverable VAT.

Resources expended are allocated to the particular activity where the cost relates directly to that activity. However, the cost of overall direction and administration of each activity, comprising the salary and overhead costs of the central function, is apportioned on the following basis which is an estimate, based on staff time, of the amount attributable to each activity.

Direct service provision 0.92 Cost of generating voluntary income 0.08

Governance costs, which are included within support costs, include the management of the charity's assets, organisational management and compliance with constitutional and statutory requirements.

g) The costs of generating voluntary income relate to the costs incurred by the charity in raising funds for the charitable work.

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

h) Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write down the cost of each asset to its estimated residual value on a straight line basis over its expected useful life. The useful lives are as follows:

Computer equipment 4 years Office equipment 4 years

Depreciation costs are allocated to activities on the basis of the use of the related assets in those activities. During the period of their depreciation, assets are reviewed for impairment if circumstances indicated their carrying value may exceed their net realisable value and value in use.

i) Restricted funds are to be used for specific purposes as laid down by the donor. Expenditure which meets these criteria is charged to the fund.
j) Unrestricted funds are donations and other incoming resources receivable or generated for the objects of the charity.
k) Rentals payable under operating leases, where substantially all the risks and rewards of ownership remain with the lessor, are charged to the statement of financial activities in the year in which they fall due.
l) The charity operates a defined contribution auto-enrolment pension scheme. The assets of the scheme are held separately from those of the charity in an independently administered fund. The pensions costs represent contributions payable under the scheme for the payment of those contributions calculated at 8% of gross pay (7% employer contribution; 1% employee contribution).

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

1.2) Going concern basis

The Executive Committee at each of its meetings throughout 2022-2023 considered its financial position and whether LCN continued to be a going concern. At its meeting on 10th July 2023 it also considered the guidance provided by the Charity Commission in relation to 'going concern'. The EC also considered LCN's ability to sustain and grow its membership and its cash position. The Executive Committee's Finance SubCommittee monitored risk, LCN's future funding 'pipeline' and the financial position of Law Centres as part of its judgement about 'going concern'. LCN secured 3 new multiyear grants in quarter of 2022-2023 and continues to submit other funding applications. The EC noted that there is sufficient cash for the year ahead. There is concern that LCN's free reserves have dropped below the Charity Commission's recommendation of holding equivalent of 3 months of running costs. The EC are taking the necessary steps to mitigate this risk and aim to rebuild reserves in 2024/25. EC agreed that LCN is a going concern. The charitable company therefore continues to adopt the going concern in preparing its financial statements.

1.3) Accounting estimates and judgements

In the view of the trustees in applying the accounting policies adopted, no judgements were required that have a significant effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements, nor do any estimates or assumptions made carry a significant risk of material adjustment in the next financial year.

1.4) Staff Policies

The costs of short-term employee benefits are recognised as a liability and an expense.

The cost of any unused holiday entitlement is recognised in the period in which the

Termination benefits are recognised immediately as an expense when the company is demonstrably committed to terminate the employment or to provide termination benefits.

1.5) Financial Instruments

Basic Financial Instruments

The charity only holds basic financial instruments as defined by FRS 102.

a) Cash and cash equivalents

Cash and cash equivalents include cash at banks and in hand and short term deposits with a maturity date of three months or less.

b) Debtors and creditors

Debtors and creditors receivable or payable within one year of the reporting date are carried initially at their transaction price and subsequently at the recoverable amount. Debtors and creditors that are receivable of payable in more than one year are carried at their present value of the expected future receipts or payment discounted at a market rate of interest.

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

2a. Donations

Donations
Subscriptions - Law Centre members Donations	Restricted £ Unrestricted £ 2023 Total £ 2022 Total £ - 89,600 89,600 83,800 36,226 43,418 79,644 76,047
	36,226 133,018 169,244 159,847

In the preceding year, all income from doantions was attributable to unrestricted funds.

2b. Charitable Activities

Charitable Activities
AB Charitable Trust Allen & Overy Foundation Access to Justice Baring Foundations Bell Foundation Comic Relief Esmee Fairbairn Foundation IT - Digital Transformation (TNLCF) IT National Project (TLEF) John Ellerman Foundation London Legal Support Trust Money For LC _TLEF Paul Hamylyn Foundation Philip King Charitable Trust Sustainability (TLEF) TLEF Trust for London Post Brexit Training Fee /Services to LCs Gifts in Kind Annual conference Total	2023 2022 Restricted Unrestricted Total Total £ £ £ £ - 50,000 50,000 70,000 - - - 25,000 - 10,000 10,000 - 184,729 - 184,729 - 8,020 - 8,020 6,666 6,986 - 6,986 62,876 - 78,000 78,000 - 91,250 - 91,250 170,000 85,600 - 85,600 279,401 - 49,000 49,000 - 33,350 - 33,350 - 20,000 - 20,000 - - - - 40,000 - - - 25,000 16,667 - 16,667 66,666 7,500 - 7,500 - 24,500 - 24,500 52,500 - 39,738 39,738 37,050 4,658 4,812 9,470 - - 13,876 13,876 8,812
	483,260 245,426 728,686 893,971

Charitable Activities

AB Charitable Trust
Allen & Overy Foundation
Access to Justice
Baring Foundations
Bell Foundation
Comic Relief
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
IT - Digital Transformation (TNLCF)
IT National Project (TLEF)
John Ellerman Foundation
London Legal Support Trust
Money For LC _TLEF
Paul Hamylyn Foundation
Philip King Charitable Trust
Sustainability (TLEF)
TLEF
Trust for London Post Brexit
Training Fee /Services to LCs
Gifts in Kind
Annual conference
Total

2023
2022
Restricted
Unrestricted
Total
Total
£
£
£
£
-
50,000
50,000
70,000
-
-
-
25,000
-
10,000
10,000
-
184,729
-
184,729
-
8,020
-
8,020
6,666
6,986
-
6,986
62,876
-
78,000
78,000
-
91,250
-
91,250
170,000
85,600
-
85,600
279,401
-
49,000
49,000
-
33,350
-
33,350
-
20,000
-
20,000
-
-
-
-
40,000
-
-
-
25,000
16,667
-
16,667
66,666
7,500
-
7,500
-
24,500
-
24,500
52,500
-
39,738
39,738
37,050
4,658
4,812
9,470
-
-
13,876
13,876
8,812

483,260
245,426
728,686
893,971

In the preceding year, £180,863 of total income from charitable activies were related to unrestricted funds and £713,108 attributable to restricted funds.

2c Other income

Other income
	Restricted	Unrestricted	2023	2022
	£	£	£	£
Sundry income	-	14,492	14,492	3,753
Total	-	14,492	14,492	3,753

In the preceding year, £3,753 were attributable to unrestricted income

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

Total expenditure
		Raising	Charitable	Support	2023	2022
		Funds	Activities	Costs
		£	£	£	£	£
Staff costs	5	36,907	368,619	75,964	481,490	512,238
Staff Travel, Training, Recruitment & Meetings		-	10,403	2,742	13,145	11,323
Governance costs	3b	-	11,362	-	11,362	14,987
Premises costs		-	25,967	-	25,967	23,284
Office: Office costs, ICT, Insurance & Comms		-	3,410	5,325	8,735	13,344
Legal and Professional Fees		-	7,833	1,662	9,495	6,780
Services to Law Centres		-	77,776	-	77,776	75,071
Grants & Payments to Law Centres	3a	-	128,482	-	128,482	242,509
Annual Conference & Events		-	23,947	-	23,947	10,802
Subscriptions & Journals		-	10,186	-	10,186	-
Training and Course Costs		-	12,422	-	12,422	9,651
Website / Digital Development		-	24,936	-	24,936	149
Bad debts expense		-	-	-	-	8,700
Project specific cost		-	231,845	-	231,845	298,279
Gifts in Kind		-	9,470	-	9,470	-
Total expenditure		36,907	946,658	85,693	1,069,258	1,227,117
Support Costs		6,569	79,125	(85,693)	-	-
Total expenditure		43,475	1,025,783	-	1,069,258	1,227,117
In the preceding year, £338,667 of expenditure	was attributable to		unrestricted	funds and £888,450 attributable to
restricted funds.

3 Total expenditure (comparision 2022)

Total expenditure (comparision 2022)
Staff costs Staff Travel, Training, Recruitment & Meetings Governance costs 3b Premises costs Office: Office costs, ICT, Insurance & Comms Legal and Professional Fees Services to Law Centres Grants & Payments to Law Centres 3a Ministry of Justice Grant & Payments Annual Conference & Events Publication design & print Subscriptions & Journals Training and Course Costs Website / Digital Development Bad debts expense (Note 3c) Gifts in kind Other (Travel & Project Specific costs) Total expenditure Support Costs Total expenditure	Raising Funds £ 32,349 715 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 33,064 4,383 37,447	Charitable Activities £ Support Costs £ 2022 £ 2021 £ 434,537 45,352 512,238 485,075 3,461 7,147 11,323 7,504 14,987 - 14,987 14,084 23,284 - 23,284 12,302 4,867 8,477 13,344 21,332 - 6,780 6,780 4,182 75,071 - 75,071 80,289 242,509 - 242,509 454,703 - - - 3,000,037 10,802 - 10,802 29,962 - - - 8,771 9,651 - 9,651 3,503 149 - 149 3,389 8,700 - 8,700 12,057 - - - 720 - - - 5,062 296,629 1,650 298,279 282,018
		1,124,647 69,406 1,227,117 4,424,990 65,023 (69,406) - -
		1,189,670 - 1,227,117 4,424,990

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

3a Analysis of Grant Payments to Law Centres

3a Analysis of Grant Payments to Law Centres
Baring Foundations Crisis Hub Comic Relief - Digital Innovation Justice Fund - Money for LC LLST TNLF Covid TFL - Post Brexit Three Guineas 3b Analysis of governance costs Annual Report Audit fees - prior year ( under-accrual) Audit fees - current year Independent examiner fees EC travel (reimbursed) Governance meetings Total governance costs	2023 £ 30,482 - - 60,000 28,000 - 10,000 - 128,482 2023 £ 1,815 2,428 - 6,000 1,119 - 11,362	2022 £ - 39,000 37,550 102,089 - 12,900 20,000 30,970
		242,509
		2022 £ 1,638 - 12,957 - 58 334
		14,987

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

Net (expenditure) / income for the year
This is stated after charging:	2023	2022
	£	£
Executive Committee's reimbursed expenses	1,119	58
Auditors' remuneration (excluding VAT):
Audit	2,428	10,975
Independent Examination	6,000	-
Operating lease rentals:
property	8,064	7,680

Executive Committee expenses of £1,119 were incurred in 2022 - 2023 (£58 in 2021/22). None of the 16 members (17 members to Dec 2022; 16 members from Dec 22) of the committee serving during 2022-23 were remunerated.

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

5. Staff costs and numbers Staff costs were as follows: Salaries and wages Social security costs Pension contributions 5a. Staff costs by activities Raising Funds Charitable Activities Support Cost	2023 £ 2022 £ 416,967 439,399 36,248 41,595 28,275 31,244
	481,490 512,238
	2023 £ 2022 £ 36,907 32,349 368,619 434,537 75,964 45,352
	481,490 512,238

One employee earned more than £60,000 during the year. Total pension (In 2021, one employee earned more than £60,000 during the year and received £4,328 in pension contributions).

5b. Staff numbers by activities

The average monthly number of employees (full-time equivalent) during the year is as follows:

is as follows:
Cost of generating income Support costs Direct Service provision Average Employee Numbers	Head Count Full Time Equivalent 2023 No. 2022 No. 2023 No. 2022 No. 4 4 0.6 0.6 5 5 1.6 1.1 13 17 7.0 9
	12 13 9.2 10.5

Staff have been allocated to areas of work where they spend most time.

Key Management Personel

The Key Management of the Charity is considered to be the Director (FT), Finance Officer (0.5 FTE) (& Trustees). The total employee benefits of the key management personnel were £ 97,179 (2022: £93,336), which includes total employer NIC Contributions of £3,359 (net of 5k employment Allowance) and total employer pension contributions of £4,592

Trustees are not renumerated but are reimbursed for travel and subsistence expenses incurred through attendance of governance meetings.

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

6. Taxation

All income is charitable and applied for charitable purposes only and thus is exempt from Corporation Tax.

7. Debtors

7. Debtors
Grants receivable Prepayments Conference fees IT Licensing Membership & Lexis Nexis Other debtors (Including PII Due from LC) 8. Creditors: amounts due within 1 year Trade creditors Taxation and social security Accruals Pension contributions Deferred Income Amount held on behalf of Law Centres Other creditors 9. Fixed assets Cost As at 01 April 2022 Additions As at 31 March 2023 Depreciation As at 01 April 2022 Charge for the year As at 31 March 2023 Net book value As at 31 March 2022 As at 31 March 2023	2023 2022 £ £ 18,582 100,000 48,492 28,477 8,487 2,500 - 4,680 35,092 24,673 33,410 3,640
	144,063 163,970
	2023 2022 £ £ 16,691 87,546 9,376 1,748 30,516 17,687 3,175 3,175 70,380 - 27,673 27,673 2,240 1,836
	160,051 139,665
	Computer equipment Total £ £ 15,837 15,837 - -
	15,837 15,837
	13,583 13,583 1,207 1,207
	14,790 14,790
	2,254 2,254
	1,047 1,047

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

10. Movements in funds

Movements in funds
Restricted funds: AB Charitable Trust (Nth Wales Law Centre) Baring Foundation Bell Foundation Comic Relief IT - Digital Transformation (TNLCF) IT - Digital Upgrade(TLEF) London Legal Support Team Mischon Donation Philip King Charitable Trust Sustainability (TLEF) TLEF (Money for NWLCSG) TLEF (Work force Development) Trust for London Post Brexit Gifts in Kind Total Restricted Funds Unrestricted funds Includes Gifts in Kind income of £4,812 Total Funds General fund *** General Funds of which designated 10a Restricted Funds Total funds	At the Net At the start of the year £ Incoming resources £ Outgoing resources £ Transfer £ Movement of Funds end of the year £ 20,000 20,000 - (20,000) - - 184,729 45,576 - 139,153 139,153 1,107 8,020 9,127 - (1,107) - - 6,986 6,986 - - - 84,001 91,250 162,334 - (71,084) 12,917 10,413 85,600 96,013 - (10,413) - 33,350 33,350 - - - - 23,973 23,973 - - - 8,697 12,253 5,050 - 7,203 15,900 595 16,667 17,262 - (595) - 20,000 20,000 - - - - 7,500 7,500 - - - 535 24,500 25,035 - (535) - 4,658 4,658 - - -
	125,348 519,486 476,864 - 42,622 167,970
	312,134 393,105 592,394 - (199,289) 112,845
	437,482 912,591 1,069,258 - (156,667) 280,815
	249,880 309,347 466,976 - (199,289) 92,250 62,253 34,757 76,417 - (41,661) 20,593 125,348 519,486 476,864 42,622 167,970 437,482 912,591 1,069,258 - (156,667) 280,815

*** Resources include Bank Interest

10a Designated Unrestricted Funds

The 2022/2023 incoming designated funds were donations raised through the Big Give and from other donors which were passed on to Law Centres during the year. Funds were again raised through the Big Give and other donors during 2022/2023 of which £20,593 remain for the coming year.

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

10d Comparative information: Movements in funds for year ended 31 March 2022

Restricted funds: Development and support of Law Centres AB Charitable Trust (LCN) AB Charitable Trust (Nth Wales Law Centre) Bell Foundation Comic Relief Covid Support (TNLCF) 10b Covid Support (TLEF) 10b Esmee Fairbairn Foundation IT - Digital Transformation (TNLCF) IT - Digital Upgrade(TLEF) Philip King Charitable Trust CRISIS / Public Law Project 10c Legal Suppor and Social Care (TLEF) Sustainability (TLEF) Three Guineas Trust Trust for London Developing New Models Trust for London Post Brexit Total Restricted Funds Unrestricted funds General fund *** General Funds of which designated 10a Restricted funds Total funds	At the start of the year £ Incoming resources £ Outgoing resources £ Transfers £ At the end of the year £ 1,396 - 1,396 - - - 20,000 - - 20,000 3,317 6,666 8,876 - 1,107 - 62,877 62,877 - 99,757 - 84,757 (15,000) - 3,359 - 3,359 - - 29,739 - 29,739 - - 62,697 169,999 148,695 - 84,001 - 279,400 268,987 - 10,413 25,000 16,303 8,697 9,000 30,000 54,000 15,000 - 5,100 - 5,100 - - 46,519 66,666 112,591 - 594 31,516 - 31,516 - - 1,858 - 1,858 - - 6,432 52,500 58,396 - 536
	300,690 713,108 888,450 - 125,348 306,301 344,500 338,667 - 312,134
	606,991 1,057,608 1,227,117 - 437,482 161,301 269,807 181,227 - 249,881 145,000 74,693 157,440 - 62,253 300,690 713,108 888,450 125,348 606,991 1,057,608 1,227,117 - 437,482

Restricted funds:
Development and support of Law Centres
AB Charitable Trust (LCN)
AB Charitable Trust (Nth Wales Law Centre)
Bell Foundation
Comic Relief
Covid Support (TNLCF)
10b
Covid Support (TLEF)
10b
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
IT - Digital Transformation (TNLCF)
IT - Digital Upgrade(TLEF)

Philip King Charitable Trust
CRISIS / Public Law Project
10c
Legal Suppor and Social Care (TLEF)
Sustainability (TLEF)
Three Guineas Trust
Trust for London Developing New Models
Trust for London Post Brexit
Total Restricted Funds
Unrestricted funds
General fund ***
General Funds
of which designated 10a
Restricted funds
Total funds

At the
start of
the year
£
Incoming
resources
£
Outgoing
resources
£
Transfers
£
At the
end of
the year
£
1,396
-
1,396
-
-
-
20,000
-
-
20,000
3,317
6,666
8,876
-
1,107
-
62,877
62,877
-
99,757
-
84,757
(15,000)
-
3,359
-
3,359
-
-
29,739
-
29,739
-
-
62,697
169,999
148,695
-
84,001
-
279,400
268,987
-
10,413
25,000
16,303
8,697
9,000
30,000
54,000
15,000
-
5,100
-
5,100
-
-
46,519
66,666
112,591
-
594
31,516
-
31,516
-
-
1,858
-
1,858
-
-
6,432
52,500
58,396
-
536

300,690
713,108
888,450
-
125,348
306,301
344,500
338,667
-
312,134

606,991
1,057,608
1,227,117
-
437,482
161,301
269,807
181,227
-
249,881
145,000
74,693
157,440
-
62,253
300,690
713,108
888,450
125,348
606,991
1,057,608
1,227,117
-
437,482

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

10. Movements in funds (continued)

Purposes of restricted funds

AB Charitable Trust: 5 year Core fund grant to LCN to increase capacity and extend the impact of LCN's work based on recommendations from the Strategic Review of LCN conducted in 2018.

Baring Foundation: to undertake in-depth work with three Law Centres (Suffolk, Vauxhall (Liverpool) and Derbyshire) to develop and scale hub activities in their locales to achieve longer-term social change for their communities and beyond.

Bell Foundation: Project lead by Harrow Law Centre to support victims of Crime, particularly those who speak languages other than English. LCN's role is to extend the learning from Harrow's project to other Law Centres with view to establish model in other parts of the UK.

Comic Relief: A collaborative project, which coworking closely with GMLC, their partners and people affected by homelessness and housing insecurity, to better manage enquiries, ensuring distributed teams can keep track of an enquiry across different channels and get people the assistance they need more quickly.

Esmee Fairbairn Foundation: New 2 years funding for core costs to maintain capacity and delivery

John Ellerman Foundation: A new 3 years core fund granted to support LCN focus on further developing its strategy and theory of change, and to make community engagement more central to our work.

Legal Education Foundation: National IT infrastructure project that will upgrade Law Centres ICT, titled Law Centres 2020 Digital Vision. The project is being implemented over 5 phases and will upgrade computers, migrate all software and data to cloud-based services. In 2022, Phase 4 of the project was completed.

Legal Education Foundation: Sustainability - 3 year grant awarded to LCN to assist it to implement recommendations made following its strategic review aimed at helping LCN become more sustainable. 2022 was the final year of the grant.

Legal Education Foundation: Workforce Development - 1 year grant to scope a scheme to assist Law Centres outside London recruit and retain staff.

Paul Hamlyn Foundation: A five year core grant provided to work on influencing government departments and other public bodies on the future of a fair and effective justice system, particularly in response to the impact of changes arising from the Covid pandemic.

London Leagal Support Trust - Cost of Living Project: Funds grant to support London Law Centres work to increase advice capacity to help people affected by the rising cost of living; improve community outreach; increase provision of specialist legal advice in the boroughs of Brent and Haringey.

Philip King Charitable Trust: This grant was provided to support the development of the Ride for Justice fundraising event aimed at securing donations for Law Centres.

CRISIS / Public Law Project - In partnership with CRISIS, an exploratory project to test the provision of legal assistance, particularly in areas of welfare rights and immigration, to better address situation of people facing homelessness. 3 Law Centres were partners in this project. LCN also focused on learning about the impact of Covid on the legal needs of people who were homeless and particularly without access to digital assistance. This project has been completed.

The National Lottery Community Fund: Realising Law Centres 2020 Digital Vision - grant awarded to LCN to work together with Law Centres to explore and implement digital technology to assist them to achieve their mission. This grant will end in 2023.

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

Trust for London: Post Brexit - analyse data collected over 5 years of LCN work with EU nationals and produce report and other learning from this to shape legal assistance for vulnerable EU nationals living in the UK. Grant includes funds to work with 2 partner Law Centres.

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

11. Net Assets by Fund

Net Assets by Fund
Fixed Assets Net current assets Net Assets by Fund (2022 Comparison) Fixed Assets Net current assets	2023 Unrestricted Restricted Total £ £ £ 1,047 - 1,047 111,798 167,970 279,768
	112,845 167,970 280,815
	2022 Unrestricted Restricted Total £ £ £ 2254 - 2254 309,880 125,348 435,228
	312,134 125,348 437,482

11a. Net Assets by Fund (2022 Comparison)

12. Operating lease commitments

The charity had annual commitments at the year end under operating leases expiring as follows:

Within 1 year	Property 2023 2022 £ £ 9,486 9,486 9,486 9,486

13. Related party transactions

Some members of LCN's board of trustees work in community Law Centres that receive funds from LCN. When funding decisions are taken in respect of these community Law Centres, the relevant representative is excluded from the discussions taking place.

representative is excluded from the discussions taking place.
Camden Law Centre (Sean Canning) Derbyshire Law Centre (Sharon Chandlers) South West london Law Centre (Patrick Maples) Reconciliation of net income/expenditure to net cash flow from operating Net expenditure as per the statement of financial activities Adjustments for: Depreciation charges Investment income Decrease in debtors Decrease in creditors Net cash used in operating activities	2023 2022 £ £ 10,500 - 9,834 18,000 15,000 12,527 activities 2023 2022 £ £ (156,667) (169,509) 1,207 1,207 (169) (37) 18,997 445 21,297 13,278
	(115,336) (154,616)

14 Reconciliation of net income/expenditure to net cash flow from operating activities

Law Centres Federation

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

COMPARATIVE INFORMATION:Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account) for year ended 31 March 2022

Note Income and Endowments Donations 2a Charitable activities 2b Investments Other 2c Total Expenditure on: Raising funds Charitable activities 3 Total Net (expenditure) / Income Net movement in funds Reconciliation of funds: Total funds brought forward 10 Total funds carried forward	Restricted £ Unrestricted £ 2022 Total £ - 159,847 159,847 713,108 180,863 893,971 - 37 37 - 3,753 3,753
	713,108 344,500 1,057,608
	- 33,064 33,064 888,450 305,603 1,194,053
	888,450 338,667 1,227,117
	(175,342) 5,833 (169,509)
	(175,342) 5,833 (169,509)
	300,690 306,301 606,991
	125,348 312,134 437,482

All of the above results are derived from continuing activities. There were no other recognised gains or losses other than those stated above.

2023-03-31-accounts

Law Centres Federation

Report and Unaudited Financial Statements 31 March 2023

Law Centres Federation

Reference and Administrative Details for the year ended 31 March 2023

Executive Officers

From 2 December 2022 to 31 March 2023:

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Election of Directors/Trustees to the Executive Committee and ongoing Training

Charity Governance Code

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Risk Management

Pay and remuneration of the

key management personnel

Public Benefit

Objects and Activities

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Strategic Goals for 2022-2023

Impact 2022-2023

Social Finance found:

Progress against

Strategic Goals for 2022-2023

Strategic Goal 1 - Help Law Centres to thrive

Community Engagement Programme

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Law Centre Support Programme

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Law Centre Area The Box

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Fundraising for Law Centres

Data

Next steps on the data journey

Digital Transformation

In addition:

The Back-Office Salesforce Project

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

EnquiryDesk

Other Digital

Strategic Goal 2 - Strengthen the network of Law Centres

Who contacts LCN What we see

Enquiries to LCN 01/04/2022 31/03/2023

Strategic national projects

A national Family Law service

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Overcoming language barriers for victims of crime The Bell Foundation

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Law Centres Federation

Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Network growth new Law Centres

Bringing the network together Communities of practice / interest groups

Workforce Development

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Wellbeing - Employee Assistance Programme

Tackling Systemic Racism - Strengthening Diversity

The plan has 5 strands:

2022 Annual Law Centre Conference

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Governance

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Policy and advocacy

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

In numbers

In other words

Communications

Law Centres Federation

The Future - the next 10 years

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

The next 3 years

The Year Ahead - 2023/2024

Fundraising Practice

GDPR

Financial review

Reserves policy

Law Centres Federation Report of the Executive Committee for the year ended 31 March 2023

Going Concern