Ms Rebecca Keatinge:

The citizens information centres play a major role in communicating the law, including new laws, to people on their website. We have had some of their website team attend our training. They are very engaged to ensure the accuracy of information. That is a valuable way of disseminating it.

We work to some degree with private tenants. Putting an obligation on a landlord to inform people of their rights is difficult because the situation is already adversarial and there is a power imbalance. We do not work much in the private rented sphere, as we are primarily focused on social housing, but in some instances we go to the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. There is an inequality of arms there because often a landlord will have the resources to bring a solicitor, which is absolutely his or her entitlement, and it will ultimately assist the landlord. We see the converse where the tenant perceives that he or she is disadvantaged, and in some respects he or she will be disadvantaged in being able to put his or her case forward properly because the legislation is vast and technical.

Professor Whyte raised the point about tribunals being excluded from the scope of civil legal aid, except for the International Protection Office. There might be a consideration there because we are moving to a position where we are providing less social housing but more social housing support through the housing assistance payment, so the rights of private tenants are increasingly relevant, particularly to the marginalised groups and vulnerable people with whom we engage.