SLF funded Section 17 HUB now open
We are pleased to announce that an SLF funded project by Project17 and Youth Legal has just been launched.
The Section 17 HUB collates detailed information about local authorities' No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) practice. This is to enable organisations to obtain the best possible outcome when referring to, and helping destitute clients approach local authorities for support under s17 Children Act 1989, and assist strategic litigation.
Information includes contact details; policy and practice documents and s17 subsistence rates that Project 17 obtained through FOI responses from all local authorities in England; what challenges have been taken and their outcomes; JR applications issued; interim relief and/or result at hearing and judgments regarding NRPF policy documents.
Templates such as a letter before claim and expenditure forms will be available. Although the policies are on the Hub, cases and resources are being added over time and will be populated over the next few months with ongoing updating.
Access to the database is by membership and will be available to organisations working with families who have NRPF.
Part of the project is to collect information from all organisations advocating for destitute clients. They have created a Google form where you can load your cases to be put on the Hub, all of which are anonymised, but they ask that you keep a record of the cases you load.
Additionally if you have contact details for local authorities they have not been able to obtain please send that information through to them as well as any judgments.
Further they have a small amount of funding to assist organisations who have many cases that need loading onto the Google form, so if you have over 5 cases to put on the system, please contact Youth Legal and discuss funding loading cases.