Improving Lives Through Advice (ILTA) Grant Programme

Improving Lives Through Advice (ILTA) is a new five-year funding programme designed to support the delivery of free legal advice to marginalised people and communities across England. A total of 59 organisations have been awarded core funding that will enable them to meet increasing demand for their services amid a picture of mounting social and economic need.

The programme aims to:

  • Sustain and improve access to specialist legal advice.
  • Empower communities to resolve legal problems.
  • Enable organisations to engage in influencing, partnerships and fundraising work, which helps them meet the needs of their communities.
  • Enable organisations to demonstrate the difference they make to people’s lives.

Programme learning

This programme provides a unique opportunity to work with grantees to understand how multi-year core funding can support them to sustain and improve access to advice.

We want to understand how organisations engage and work with communities, the different approaches being utilised and how we can support them by working in a more open and trusting way as a funder.  By establishing a relational approach, we want to encourage learning and development enabling organisations to adapt, be flexible and respond to the needs of their local communities.

We will be working with an equity learning partner, an independent evaluator and a funder plus partner offering training and capacity-building support.

By 2029 we aim to measure and understand the following:

  • Whether specialist advice organisations are in a stronger position to respond to the needs of the people and communities they support.
  • If and how people receive specialist advice addressing critical rights, freedoms, services, illegality. Including insight into which interventions work for different communities/groups.
  • Understand how organisations have developed partnerships, connections, relationships across communities and wider sectors; supporting services and access to advice.
  • Demonstrate the wider use of advice beyond individual casework e.g. collaborations, second tier support, community relationship building, frontline support.
  • Develop fuller understanding of how advice can be used in more collaborative, resource efficient ways bringing wider impact and social benefit.
 

We plan to publish and share learning from the programme on this page moving forward.  For any queries about ILTA please contact Grants Manager Sirintiya Booth-Roberts sirintiyabooth-roberts@atjf.org.uk.

Programme news