The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (currently passing through Parliament) will introduce up to £350 million of cuts to funding in legal aid services in April 2013. The Bill is likely to cut funding for advice on debt, employment, housing, family, immigration, welfare benefits and some other areas. It will also impact who can get legal aid, by asking people on low incomes to pay more towards their legal advice and by reducing the lowest fees for civil advice. Many legal service providers, such as Law Centres, are also facing cuts to other sources of funding (e.g. from local authorities).

This PhD will help to address the need for research which examines the actual impact of these cuts to legal advice services, particularly on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. It will examine how legal advice providers are responding to these cuts to funding and the different models that are being developed to deal with these changes.

The PhD will build upon the expertise developed by the Centre for Human Rights in Practice in research which uses the norms and standards of human rights and equality law in order to analysis the impacts of policies and practices.

There is significant research which demonstrates how welfare reform, cuts to public services and increases in costs of living are likely to have the greatest impact on the poorest and most vulnerable groups. For instance:

• Research from Sheffield Hallam University has mapped the impact of welfare reform and how it is hitting the poorest places hardest.[1]
• Research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies has demonstrated how cuts to benefits and changes to tax will have the greatest impact on the poorest and most disadvantaged.[2]
• The Fawcett Society and Women’s Budget Group have shown how poor women in particular will be badly hit by cuts to public services and welfare benefits.[3]
• Disability Alliance has shown how spending cuts announced by the Coalition Government are likely to significantly increase the number of disabled people living in poverty.[4]

At the same time, central government policymakers have suggested that a number of the welfare benefit reforms will, for instance, reduce welfare dependency and poverty and lead to more individuals seeking and obtaining (better paid work). [5] Researchers are increasingly examining what the differentiated impacts (both positive and negative) of particular welfare reforms are on particular groups.[6]

There is a strong need for research which examines the actual impact of these cuts and reforms, particularly on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, and what is happening to their ‘lived experience’ in order to better inform these polarized debates. This Collaborative PhD will contribute to such research efforts.

The PhD will build upon the expertise developed by the Centre for Human Rights in Practice in research which uses the norms and standards of human rights and equality law in order to analysis the impacts of policies and practices.

Particularly relevant to the current project is the work of the Centre on the human rights and equality impacts of the public spending cuts on women in Coventry.

The research will involve studying the individuals and families who are being affected by a range of welfare reforms and other spending cuts, and whose underlying situation (because of poverty, disability etc.) means that they will be particularly likely to be vulnerable to significant effects as a result of those reforms/cuts and any increases in cost of living. The research will explore the possibilities of welfare reform having both positive and negative impacts on the groups and individuals studied.

This PhD will therefore involve mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) research into the impact of the public spending cuts and welfare reform on vulnerable groups and individuals in Coventry. By using the extensive quantitative data which Coventry City Council has collected in relation to families and individuals who are impacted by multiple aspects of the welfare reform agenda (e.g. the welfare benefits cap, the ‘bedroom tax’ etc.) the researcher will develop a ‘vulnerability index’ by which to identify particular individuals and families who appear to be particularly likely to be significantly impacted by reforms, cuts and any increased living costs and whose underlying situation (because of poverty, disability etc.) means that they would be particularly likely to be vulnerable to significant effects as a result of those reforms/cuts. These individuals and families will also be selected on the basis of their representativeness in relation to a range of other groups and individuals in Coventry.

The research project will then utilise a range of qualitative research methods to generate rich, detailed, textured data about individuals/families and their lived experience in order to understand the holistic impacts of the cuts and changes on their lives.

At the local level, this research will provide insights about the extent to which different groups of people affected by welfare reforms are coping and where there are opportunities for local organisations to intervene to maximise individual resilience and mitigate the risk of increasing dependence upon local services.

At a national level the research is expected to provide robust empirical evidence of the actual impact of cuts and reforms, particularly on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, in order to better inform existing debates.

It is expected that the successful candidate will therefore directly engage with policymakers at the local level, and report on findings of the research as it is progressing. Coventry City Council and the Centre for Human Rights in Practice will also facilitate engagement with national networks in order to more widely disseminate the research findings and identify key lessons from research being undertaken elsewhere.

[1] Beatty and Fothergill, Hitting the Poorest Hardest: The Local and National Impact of Welfare Reform (Sheffield Hallam University, 2013). Find out more here.

[2] E.g. James Browne and Peter Levell, The distributional effect of tax and benefit reforms to be introduced between June 2010 and April 2014: a revised assessment, (Institute of Fiscal Studies, 2010) available here.

[3] E.g. UK Women’s Budget Group, The Impact on Women of the Budget 2011, (April 2011) available at here.

[4] E.g. Disability Alliance, Emergency Budget Summary, (30 November 2010), available here.

[5] See e.g. Department of Work and Pensions ‘Simplifying the welfare system and making sure work pays’ here.

[6] See e.g. Donald Hirsch and Yvette Hartfree, Does Universal Credit enable households to reach a minimum income standard? (2013, Joseph Rowntree Foundation) available here.

The Centres’ Human Rights and Equality Impact Assessments and Mary-Ann’s toolkit have also been utilised as a template for assessments by other groups around the country, including:

• Bristol Fawcett’s ‘Cutting Women Out’
• Women’s Resource Centre and NE Women’s Network ‘The impact of austerity measures upon women in the North East of England
• The East London Fawcett Group ‘Cutting women out: How the cuts have affected women in Islington’

On 10 February 2014, the Centre for Human Rights in Practice held an expert roundtable discussion to to explore ways in which equality and human rights legislation can be used to monitor, analyse and challenge welfare benefit sanctions policy and practice. The report of this event is available here.

More information about the Toolkit and how it has been used can be found here.