About Us
In the UK, there is deep systemic inequality, with many individuals, families and communities experiencing injustices that prevent them from accessing basic services they need and realising their rights. The rule of law is a central tenet for justice. However, the law and legal processes are complex and constantly changing, and legal advice is expensive and out of reach for many which further exacerbates disadvantages and inequalities.
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Not-for-profit specialist legal advice organisations are therefore vital resources for communities to access justice. Yet these specialist organisations are profoundly underfunded and under resourced for myriad reasons, and this means that advice services are often understaffed and overstretched to meet the increasing demand and increasing complexity of need in the community. And all of this is within a hostile environment and fragmented sector needing to stay afloat in crisis after crisis from pandemics to hate riots to financial crashes.​​
THAT'S WHERE WE COME IN...
Our Goal
We want stable, resilient, vibrant advice organisations that are able to grow, evolve, work together and deliver quality specialist advice that meets community needs.
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So the Management and Leadership Hub provides training, resources and support to non-profit specialist advice and legal advice agencies. Our hope is that through building and encouraging management and leadership skills and by creating a community of leaders from right across the advice sector, we can help advice agencies become more resilient. That resilience helps them help more people.
Our Purpose
We help managers and leaders manage and lead resilient, vibrant and responsive advice organisations
Our purpose is to strengthen the resilience and effectiveness of non-profit advice sector organisations by strengthening the resilience and effectiveness of advice sector managers and leaders.
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We equip legal advice leaders at each level of management experience with relevant information and practical skills useful for the reality of dealing with daily challenges in the legal advice sector.
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Specific to the advice sector – what you need to know and be able to do to lead a team and deliver in a high-pressure, under resourced advice sector.
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Real world, hands on – we share not just useful information but provide platforms for hearing from others in similar situations and testing out how you might best apply your learning to your everyday management practice in your unique organisational context
Our Values
Honesty – we are critically honest about the state of the sector and management, recognising we can only address problems if we face them
Pragmatic – we are practical, proactive and take a solution based approach to address challenges and issues
Collaborative – we strive to foster opportunities and environments where all voices are valued and heard; we believe we are more innovative and impactful together
Learning – open and curious and constantly challenging ourselves to do better
Supportive – we’ve been there, we get it, and we got your back
Our History
The Hub in its current form was created during the Covid crisis when the funders who came together to create the Community Justice Fund realised that as well as emergency funding, advice agencies needed more practical support to weather the storm created by Covid and the emerging cost of living crisis. Working with Matt Howgate, the Hub Director, they created a funder plus programme.
That led to development the Management & Leadership Programme, which built on the the LAPG Certificate in Practice Management which was originally created back in 2015 by Vicky Ling and Matt Howgate with funding from the UK Commission for Education & Skills.
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Since its creation the Hub has been hosted by the Legal Aid Practitioner’s Group.
OUR TEAM
MATTHEW HOWGATE
Director of the LAPG Management & Leadership Hub
Matthew Howgate is an Organisation Development Consultant and now Director of the LAPG Management & Leadership Hub. He started his career as a legal aid solicitor and has spent the last 15 years working as a consultant across the legal aid and advice sectors.
ANDREA SHUMAKER
Head of Learning and Development
Andrea has worked with the Management & Leadership Hub since 2022, she is responsible for the administration and development side of the Hub. She also works as the Head of Learning & Development for LAPG where she manages their training offerings among other projects.
TINA PURYEAR
Organisational Development and Training Associate
Tina is responsible for strengthening advice for organisations to help them be more resilient and sustainable through training, consultancy, community, advice, mentoring and resources
OUR APPROACH
We draw on our experience - between us as a team, we have 20 years’ experience as consultants working directly with managers and leadership teams. We also have years of experience as managers in the advice sector and not for profit sector. We draw on this experience to inform the design, planning and delivery of a range of bespoke support for advice sector leaders.
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We bring in sector experts – we invite experienced leaders who have been there, who understand the unique context and challenges of the advice sector, to co-design and co-deliver knowledge and skill sharing events, workshops and resources. These are sector leaders who have developed specialist expertise in specific management or leadership related areas.
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We research and share – we are continuously on the lookout for pragmatic and user-friendly guidance, toolkits, templates, tips etc that are relevant, and we share these practical resources widely to help you make things work more smoothly for your team and organisation. If we can’t find them, we create them.
We link and connect – the challenges facing the advice sector are systemic and complex. As a sector as a whole, and at an organisational level, we need to be able to respond creatively to these challenges. To inspire more creative solutions and responses, we provide opportunities for managers and leaders to link, connect and share to foster the spread of innovation, enhance learning and promote collaboration and partnerships.
OUR FUNDERS
The original development of the Hub was funded through the Community Justice Fund (CJF).
When the work of the CJF was coming to an end we were fortunate to receive ongoing funding from the Legal Education Foundation and AB Charitable Trust. This allowed us to expand the Hub’s work and to build on that original training programme, building in our online learning platform. TLEF and AB funding continues until the end of August 2024 and we are working on lots of new content, including a full training programme for the Law Centres Network.
The Hub has now been commissioned to be the Access to Justice Foundation’s Funder Plus partner for the Improving Lives Through Advice (ILTA) grant programme. This 5-year funding from the National Lottery Community Fund secures the future of our Management & Leadership Training Programme.
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Read more about the Improving Lives Through Advice grant programme
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Find information about our funders' below:
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The Legal Education Foundation​
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