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We will be publishing our 2015/16 annual report in full shortly, but meantime we have set out some headlines below. It's been a remarkable year of growth for Govan Law Centre where we been able to help improve the lives of more people in Scotland through our casework and campaigns. In 2015/16 we have:
•
Launched
3 innovative projects
• Successfully campaigned on growing
problems in the private rented sector including the Scottish Parliament accepting some of our proposals and them being included in the new Private Housing
(Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016
• Agreed to join the Scottish Government’s advisory group on the implementation of the
Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016
•
Report submitted to United Nations on rights of
tenants, homeless people and asylum seekers in Scotland
• Over a 1,000 people prevented from being made homeless in Glasgow
•
Over
£5m housing debt cases dealt with in Glasgow alone
•
In
over 9 in 10 cases we prevent homelessness saving families misery and the
public purse £millions every year
•
600
people got a benefit check, almost 200 benefit appeals taken on.
•
We
represent in Ayr, Glasgow, Kilmarnock sheriff courts every week; and Scotland's Supreme Court, the Court of Session
•
We
provide a dedicated home visiting service provided to carers in the North East
of Glasgow
•
We
have gained our clients in Glasgow almost £500,000 contributing to the local
economy
•
8
in 10 of clients in our busy Govanhill office are from BME community.
•
75%
of clients in our Govanhill office speak English as a second language or
need an interpreter
•
We
worked with Scottish Government to improve the rights of children within
Education (Scotland) Act 2016.
•
We
run community rights hubs in homeless day centres and NHS mental health
services across Glasgow. Meeting the needs of some of the most vulnerable
people in our city
Growing GLC
We have three new
projects: a new project to tackle the growing problems in the Private Rented
Sector funded by the Big Lottery Fund, a new Public Interest Litigation Unit which takes on cases with a wider public benefit and a Personal Insolvency Law Unit which is
the first project of its kind to take an ethical approach to supporting people
through serious debt/bankruptcy. We have had to take on new office space to accommodate our
growing organisation.
Campaigning
GLC
We successfully
campaigned on Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 to improve the
rights of growing number of people forced to rent in the private sector. A
number of recommendations were supported by a Parliamentary Committee, which were reflected
in Scottish Government amendments to the Bill at Stages 2 and 3.
We have agreed
to join the Scottish Government’s advisory group on the implementation of the Private Housing
(Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016. Our recommendations were backed up by our Big Lottery funded research Powerless: no expectations, choice or security.
We were
successful in our campaign against social landlords seeking up-front rent
payments from homeless persons who are legally entitled to an offer of a
permanent tenancy.
We have been
successful in improving the rights of ordinary homeowners through our strategic
test case and court work has improved the rights of homeowners mortgage
companies will have to ensure borrowers are properly protected when they issue
short term interest only mortgages.
We represented 4,000 Govan residents at a Public Hearing in their campaign against parking restrictions in Govan since
the building of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
Glasgow City
Council Contract
Our Glasgow City
Council contract runs to 2018 and last year 474 clients were prevented from
homelessness, we dealt with £5,478,711.74 of housing debt, £481,764.24 of financial gains were achieved and we made143 home visits
to provide a service to vulnerable clients.
Justice
Fellowship
We have participated in the launch of the Justice Fellowship for trainee solicitors to undertake innovative projects.
Funded by Legal Education Foundation and Royal Bank of Scotland. We produced a
report for United Nations on housing conditions and rights of tenants, homeless
people and asylum seekers in Scotland, and how this impacted on the quality of
life of our clients. We have been undertaking a wide range of housing and
social welfare casework to develop an innovative access to justice project in
Glasgow.
Govanhill
services
•
6
in 10 of our clients are in the private rented sector
•
6
in 10 of casework deals with evictions, illegal evictions, and properties below
the tolerable standard
•
3
in 10 of our clients are disabled
•
8
in 10 of our clients are BME and over
•
7
in 10 have English as a second language or require an interpreter
We provide a
dedicated home visiting service provided to North East carers
Ayrshire
services
Ayrshire
homelessness prevention project provides representation and support in mortgage
repossession case. It runs monthly surgeries in Ardrossan and weekly
representation in Kilmarnock and Ayr Sheriff court. We have taken on almost 50
new cases.
National Education Law Unit
•
Over
500 cases dealt with on helpline
•
We
took on almost 96 new tribunal cases, and we took on 31 new cases with strategic
litigation importance.
•
ELU
worked closely with Scottish Government in developing the proposals for
extending children’s rights
within the tribunal process. This
resulted in Part 3 of the Education (Scotland) Act 2016.
Prevention of
homelessness project
•
We
have a 95% success rate in preventing
homelessness
•
Over
christmas and new year winter period we carried out 32 - or over 100 hours of -
rights hubs in Glasgow which resulted in 200 legal letters sent out on behalf
of clients, 198 people getting re-housed,
and 6 successful judicial reviews in Edinburgh at the Court of Session
•
We
did 595 benefit checks.
•
We
challenged 163 benefit claims using appeal and review systems 94% were
successful.
•
Private
rented research project was a voice for growing private rented sector tenants.
Our report confirms that far too often tenants in Scotland’s private rented sector are getting
very poor value for money, they have very little choice and feel powerless to
do anything about there predicament.
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