Why have a management committee? What does it do?

The management committee is a voluntary group of people with the key role of ensuring that the Law Centre fulfils all its legal obligations and operates efficiently and according to good practice guidelines.

The Committee also ensures that the Law Centre best meets the needs of our local communities, debating the priorities for future work, and governing long term decision making.

We aim to be accountable to the Community we serve.

We believe that as lawyers, we can be most useful to our local community when our community has a controlling influence on how we work.

As such, we have an elected Management Committee to reflect our local community. We believe our Committee will best reflect Cumbrian society. Local community groups send delegates to serve as committee members. At present we are fortunate to have representatives of Cumbria Action for Social Support (“CASS”) and Impact Housing Association. We are also grateful for the contribution of elected members of Carlisle, Allerdale and Copeland councils.

Our current Management Committee members are: -

David Niven (Chairperson)
Frank Ward (Treasurer)
George Miller (Vice Chair) - Delegate: Cumbria Action For Social Support
Duncan Larkin Jones (Company Secretary)
Cllr Alan Holliday - Delegate: Copeland Borough Council
Cllr David Wilson - Delegate: Allerdale Borough Council
Lorraine Usher - Impact Housing Association

Peter Potter - Individual

Anne Quilter - Local resident

Some of the things that our management committee are involved in include:

• Raising issues of local concern, and continuing to debate on the work the Law Centre should do.
• Promotion and awareness raising, to make sure that the Law Centre is well known in the area it serves
• Working with the manager and staff to ensure that quality standards are being met
• Devising the Law Centre's business plan, and monitoring its implementation
• Making sure the Law Centre is fulfilling its responsibilities as an employer of paid staff
• Financial matters, for example, budget reviewing, fundraising and planned service developments