Programs we administer

Community legal centres

Legal Aid NSW administers funding on behalf of the NSW Government, Commonwealth Government and Public Purpose Fund for the Community Legal Centres (CLC) Program in NSW.

The CLC Program funds 32 generalist and specialist community legal centres and the state peak body Community Legal Centres NSW (CLCNSW). The CLC Program also funds the Aboriginal Legal Access Program, the Children’s Court Assistance Scheme and the Court Support Scheme, which provide complementary non-legal support services in courts and local communities.

CLCs are independent, non-government organisations that provide free legal services to the public, focusing on people facing social and financial disadvantage. In addition to funding available through the CLC Program, centres may also receive funding from various other government and non-government sources.

Funding and services

This year, we administered $40,260,434 of CLC Program grant funding to community legal centres and CLCNSW. This includes some one-off Commonwealth and state funding for disaster-related legal assistance and sector-wide projects. For further details regarding this funding, see Appendix 4: Community Legal Centres Program funding (PDF, 125 kb).

Funding by source

Biennial survey highlights high client satisfaction

Satisfaction surveys of CLC clients are a requirement under the National Legal Assistance Partnership and provide an opportunity to understand service delivery outcomes from a client’s perspective and examine whether the objectives of the program are being met.

The CLC Program commissioned CLCNSW to coordinate the delivery of the 2023 survey, and they reported the results in October. Just over 2,400 clients were surveyed, and 916 responses were collected.

• 99% of respondents stated that the CLC listened to their legal problem.
• 98% of respondents would recommend the service to other people.
• 97% of respondents said the centre helped them understand how to deal with their legal problem.
• 96% of respondents knew where to get help with any future legal problems.
• 79% of clients identified an improvement in their wellbeing.
• 82% identified reduced levels of stress.

State funding enables Financial Abuse Service expansion

In September 2023, the NSW Government announced $8.1 million in funding for a four-year expansion of the Financial Abuse Service at Redfern Legal Centre. The service has been operating since 2019 and provides free legal advice and support to people across NSW experiencing financial abuse, often by an intimate partner or ex-partner. The service assists with credit, debt, consumer law problems and family law financial matters.

The additional state funding has enabled the service to employ more solicitors, financial counsellors, social workers and other staff. The service is now able to assist victim-survivors on partner visas with tax and immigration law problems. It will continue to expand its scope over the next financial year.

One-off funding provides much-needed support

Twenty-two community legal centres reported the positive outcomes of one-off state funding to support people experiencing or at risk of domestic, family and sexual violence.

This funding came to an end in June 2024 and supported centres to deliver frontline services focused on victim-survivors and their needs. Centres assisted clients to:

• escape ‘sexually transmitted debt’ (where the client has become liable for a partner’s debt) by negotiating with creditors
• access victims’ compensation
• navigate the process of getting an apprehended domestic violence order
• negotiate parenting plans and property settlements
• access a permanent visa
• broker social housing arrangements, and
• assert their employment rights.

The year ahead for CLCs

• We will work with peak body CLCNSW, the Children’s Court Assistance Scheme and the Aboriginal Legal Access Program to support staff training projects and sector-wide events.
• We will work with the community legal sector, the Department of Communities and Justice and other stakeholders to implement the next National Legal Assistance Partnership.

Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Program

Legal Aid NSW administers funding for specialist domestic and family violence support services across the state through our Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Program (WDVCAP) Unit.

The WDVCAP Unit administers state government funding for Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Services (WDVCASs), the largest frontline service for women experiencing domestic and family violence in NSW. These services provide women with information, advocacy, safety planning, referrals, case management and support through the court process at all NSW local courts. In 2023–24, WDVCASs assisted 64,082 clients.

WDVCASs play a key role in the NSW Government’s Safer Pathway program, including providing secretariat and victim liaison support for Safety Action Meetings (SAMs) across the state. SAMs are local interagency meetings that aim to reduce the risk to victims at serious threat of injury or death due to domestic and family violence.

We also administer Commonwealth funding for the social support component of the Family Advocacy and Support Service (FASS), a national scheme of integrated legal and social support for families affected by domestic and family violence and going through the family law process. In 2023–24, FASS social support workers assisted 4,734 clients.

Number of women supported by Women's Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Services

Hearing support pilot receives positive evaluation

In April 2024, Dr Jane Wangmann and colleagues from the University of Technology, Sydney, delivered a positive evaluation of the WDVCAS Hearing Support Pilot. The pilot commenced in November 2022 in 14 WDVCAS locations covering 73 local courts and expanded to all other locations in November 2023 following a $6.1 million investment from the NSW Government. In the first year of the pilot, over 3,000 women were supported across the state.

Pilot funding enabled WDVCASs to employ dedicated hearing support specialist workers to assist women in preparing for court hearings and attending court safely. Support could include arranging for women to attend a pre-hearing clinic with police, helping them to understand the court process, facilitating access to remote witness facilities or arranging supports on the day, such as transport and childcare.

Dr Wangmann’s evaluation found that the pilot reduced the stress and trauma associated with the court process for victim-survivors, improved their engagement with the court process, assisted them in giving better quality evidence at defended hearings and helped them to obtain apprehended domestic violence orders with appropriate conditions. The evaluation recommended that the pilot be funded to continue as a component of standard WDVCAS service delivery.

The year ahead for WDVCAP

• We will administer over $4 million in new funding from the NSW Government for WDVCASs to help them keep up with increasing demand. This funding was provided as part of the NSW Government's emergency domestic, family and sexual violence response package.
• We will work with NSW Police to continue our co-location pilot, which places specialist WDVCAS staff at participating police stations to support women who are there to report or seek help with domestic and family violence.

Key challenge

Securing FASS funding from 1 July 2025. We will pursue this in collaboration with specialist teams within the Family Law Division and FASS providers across the state.