Child Poverty Action Group

Fellow: Sophie Earnshaw

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is a national charity working to end poverty among children, young people and families in the UK. We undertake policy, campaigning, lobbying and media work to raise awareness of the causes, extent and impact of child poverty and advocate strategies for its prevention and eradication.

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We are a leading provider of specialist advice and information about the social security system through our highly renowned publications, our telephone advice service for advisers, and our national training programme. We also pursue legal test cases, to protect or secure the rights families with children in poverty.

CPAG currently employs one solicitor based in our London offices who uses litigation to challenge central government and other public bodies on social security and related income maintenance issues, by bringing test cases through the relevant tribunals and courts. CPAG has a contract with the Legal Aid Agency to provide publically funded work in the ‘public law’ category of work. We also conduct social security appeals under legal aid and pro bono and carry out project work funded by various charitable trusts and foundations.

In addition to its test case work, CPAG has a dedicated welfare rights team who provide second-tier advice on welfare benefits; produce publications on social security issues, including the Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits Handbook and the Welfare Rights Bulletin; and carry out training and campaign work. We also run a project giving direct social security advice to claimants at Tower Hamlets Foodbank.

The trainee will be supervised by the solicitor and can expect to undertake a broad range of contentious and non-contentious work covering public law, social security, human rights, discrimination and charity law. This is an opportunity to qualify as a specialist in the field of public and social security law, while working on complex and high profile cases and developing skills in tribunal advocacy, training, direct and second-tier advice and writing for publication.

For further information, visit our website.