Originally part of the pool of Local Authorities which sponsored the Outreach Project, in September 2004 the North & South Lanarkshire Councils decided to sign a service agreement in order to give more access to the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre services to the members of the ethnic minority communities residing within their council areas.

This service agreement led to what now is called the Pan-Lanarkshire Project, which started on the 20th of June 2005. North and South Lanarkshire are jointly funding a Solicitor and an Administrative Worker in the law centre to provide a dedicated legal service to the ethnic minority residents of Lanarkshire.

Our Trainee Solicitor, Stewart Cunningham, has been appointed to this project along with Nazia Yusuf, Admin Worker.

A key feature of the Pan-Lanarkshire Project is partnership working with the Citizens Advice Bureaux across Lanarkshire. A working group has already been established with representatives from the Lanarkshire CABx and EMLC. The Working Group has in turn developed a referral protocol and pro forma for referrals to be made between the CABx and EMLC. Informal referrals continue to be made between organisations until the formal referral system becomes fully operational. Another feature of the partnership working with the CABx is in identifying training needs and providing reciprocal training. It is hoped that EMLC will provide training, dependent on need, to the CABx in our areas of expertise and they in turn will provide training to our solicitors and caseworkers in their areas of expertise.

Stewart has already had the opportunity to develop links with organisations in Lanarkshire and publicise the project. Since the project began he has attended the Hamilton CAB AGM, the Lanarkshire Race Equality Partners meeting and South Lanarkshire’s Corporate Race Equality meeting to talk about the project and the work the law centre undertakes. We hope to continue to develop links with both mainstream organisations in Lanarkshire and BME community organisations not only to publicise our service but also to educate the ethnic minority communities in Lanarkshire as to their legal rights and the remedies available to them.

Furthermore these activities will be monitored and regulated by the “Ethnic Minorities Law Centre and North & South Lanarkshire Citizens Advice Bureaux Partnership Forum” which will be responsible for formulating and implementing strategies to improve access and service delivery to the client group from the resident Black and Ethnic Minority population.