Access to justice foundation unveils plan

Today, the Access to Justice Foundation launches its grant-making strategy, setting out how it will make good use of undistributed damages from collective actions and the guiding principles for its grant-making. The strategy follows the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT)’s recent decision to award £3.8 million in unclaimed settlement damages from the Gutmann v SW Trains case.

Access to Justice Foundation will focus unclaimed money from collective actions on three core areas: access to legal advice for individuals in their communities, activity to support policy changes, and mass reach through citizen engagement to raise awareness of legal rights. This initiative prioritises funding long-term costs to support free legal advice for those who need it most, both locally and nationally. The Foundation will also seek to fund work that addresses the underlying causes of advice needs, partnering with frontline and community groups to effectively reduce the necessity for legal advice.

Additionally, ATJF aims to engage citizens widely to enhance awareness regarding their legal rights, including consumer redress. They plan to leverage their advice and grantee networks to promote a better understanding of rights and responsibilities while developing a research and insights infrastructure to identify areas of need. Each of these focus areas will be prioritised based on the greatest need, specific case circumstances, and potential impact maximisation. Grant-making decisions will depend on the amount of available funds from each case, balancing immediate needs and long-term capacity-building.

ATJF has collaborated over the past year with consumer and funding experts, including Advice UK, Age UK, Citizens Advice, Consumer Voice, the Law Centres Network, and Which?, to develop this grant-making strategy. ATJF plans to launch an open grants round in early 2026 to distribute funds arising from the SW Trains case. The strategy also outlines considerations for monitoring, evaluation, and learning to ensure the demonstrated impact of their grant-making initiatives.