Black holes in space are a proven scientific fact but black holes in public sector budgets are often a matter of dispute. So it would seem with the alleged £90 million ‘black hole’ in the courts budget.
This controversy started with a letter from Lord Justice Leveson which was leaked to the Conservatives. In the letter he outlines the ‘difficult’ financial situation the courts are in, as they have to find £90 million in cuts over the next three years. Henry Bellingham, the shadow justice secretary, made much media hay over the contents of the letter linking it to the continuing controversy over the family fee income. The Justice Minister, Lord Hunt countered and insisted that there was no ‘black hole’ and that the planned ‘efficiency savings’ would have no impact on the people who use the courts service
District Judge Crichton, who set up the pioneering drugs and alcohol court earlier this year, told LAG last week that in the period since September last year applications are down by ‘between 25% and 30%’. ‘I’d love to think there were fewer children at risk but, of course, I am not confident that’s the picture,’ he said. The Judiciary has been outspoken about the enormous hike in fees - up from £150 to over £4000 if a case goes to a full hearing. This is a key part of the government’s plan to make the courts self financing and fits into the Ministry of Justices overall financial strategy. LAG believes that a significant factor in the drop in cases has been the introduction of the Public Law Outline (PLO) which has led to more cases being resolved prior to proceedings being issued. Next month the new proceedings and increase in fees would have been running for six months an opportune time for the Government review whether these changes have led to an improvement or a reduction in the legal protection of vulnerable children.
Important though it is, the debate on the changes to fees and the PLO are side issues in the controversy over the court service budget. Court fee income can fluctuate due to changes in the law and in the economy. LAG notes that in the last quarter creditor’s petitions increased by 18% and housing repossession orders by 24% on the same quarters as last year. It would distasteful in the extreme to herald such figures as a ‘business triumph’ representing as they do the human misery caused by economic woes which risk-taking bankers are largely to blame for. This is perhaps the nub of the judiciary’s objections to the courts service being run like a stand alone business focused on the bottom line.
The administration of justice should be independent of market forces. Court administration should be as efficient as any business, but access to justice should not be determined by the market. The problem is that the MoJ’s difficulties with its overall budget are forcing the service down this route.
By 2010-11 the MoJ has to make £1 billion in savings. This includes £140m from the court service (£60m more than Judge Leveson claims) and £45m from the tribunals, as well as £180m from that other area of great concern to LAG – the rapidly shrinking legal aid fund. This is in part to pay for other priority spending such as the Titan Prisons (another target of judicial criticism) and to meet the department’s overall target set by the Treasury in the Comprehensive Spending Review. With inflation running at 5%, well above the 2% target set by the government, it is likely that the MoJ will have to find further ‘efficiency savings’. The biggest item of expenditure will be the funding of pay increases for staff if they exceed the 2.4% public sector pay policy.
Undoubtedly then a black hole exists, but in the MoJ’s corner of the universe they prefer to call it ‘efficiency savings’ while the rest of us use a more old-fashioned term - budget cuts. Some savings can no doubt be made by more effective management and LAG would support this, but to make the level of cuts necessary to balance the books there will inevitably be reductions in service, such as fewer clerks to administer courts, less judicial time and the maximising of fee income, all at the expense of access to justice for the public.
Steve Hynes is the director of Legal Action Group.
Monday, 29 September 2008
Monday, 7 July 2008
Supermarket sweep
Where does publicly-funded law fit into the new world of ‘Tesco law’? The expectation is that big business will storm the aisles like a deranged contestant on Supermarket Sweep throwing all the money-making stuff – personal injury, conveyancing etc – into its trolley and leaving non-remunerative, publicly funded law to gather dust on the shelf.
The likes of the Co-Op, the AA, after-the-event insurer DAS and most recently the consumer group Which? have all announced an intention to take advantage of the Legal Services Act. Alternative business structures (ABSs), which will enable firms to be partly owned by non-lawyers, are expected to arrive around 2011. The worst fear of legal aid lawyers is that this relaxation will prompt a bout of asset-stripping on the High Street.
In the July issue of Legal Action, we ask big business what are its intentions (if any) for social welfare law. Would, for example, the Co-Op move into legal aid? ‘It depends on demand and it also depends on how the membership might view it,’ replies Eddie Ryan, managing director of the Co-operative Legal Services. Ryan reckons it isn’t a huge stretch of the imagination for them to do so but draws the line at ‘certain actions that are socially unacceptable’ (such as representing drink-driving Co-Op members).
It is easy to see the provision of ‘access to justice’ fitting into the retail giant’s ‘ethical’ corporate agenda. They are already talking the talk. Ryan describes the Co-Op’s relationship with its members as ‘wrapping our arms about people who need our help’. The Co-Op has already set up its own legal services in anticipation of the liberalisation. The rhetoric at the moment outstrips reality but the potential is huge. It is already available to four million members, plus 1.5 million policy holders who have legal expenses insurance (LEI) attached to motor and household insurance.
Which? recently announced the expansion of its legal service in anticipation of the new regime. Subscribers pay £51 a year and last year it provided up to 60,000 pieces of advice last year. Which? (like the Co-Op) defines its service in access to justice terms. ‘Lots of the cases that we do would probably fall under the radar of a typical high-street law firm,’ says Which?’s head of legal Gordon Wilson says. ‘People don’t know where else to go, they aren’t sure what their rights are and how to exercise them.’
The Legal Services Act will re-energise the legal expenses industry. ABSs mean that insurers will be able to streamline their business model by dispensing with cumbersome law firm panels. Coverage is already huge and the insurer DAS reckons that there are 10 UK million policy holders. For Kathryn Mortimer, its head of legal services, the relationship between LEI and publicly-funded advice is clear. ‘It is an alternative to legal aid,’ she says. Insurers are hoping for a more sympathetic environment for their businesses - in particular, a lifting of the restriction of the right of policy holders to choose their own lawyers. ‘The government needs to watch very carefully that they don’t alienate the LEI market because we’re picking up the tab for clinical negligence, personal injury, contract and property disputes which the Legal Services Commission doesn’t cover.’
As Which?, a long-time advocate for LEI, noted in 2001 one of its deficiencies of legal insurance products was that cover was heavily prescribed and policy-holders if they knew they had LEI at all (many were oblivious) didn’t know what exactly is covered. The pressure is on to develop wide-ranging services to offer members total legal protection. The ‘demand and appetite from members is for full-service’, Which?’s Gordon Wilson acknowledges. So will it take advantage of the forthcoming liberalisation and set up or take over a firm which covers everything including legal aid? ‘I would not want to answer that at the moment,’ he replies.
Not everyone is waiting for the arrival of ABSs. Sheffield-based A4E, through its partnership with the legal aid firm Howells, has scored a notable hat-trick: winning tenders for Community Legal Advice, the Leicester CLAC (community legal advice centre) and is now preferred bidder in Hull CLAC.
The provision of high quality legal advice for those who can’t afford to pay privately is critical. When it comes to tenders, one hopes that the lure of new private sector interest shouldn’t take precedence over the committed but beleaguered network of private practice firms and advisers. LAG recently learnt A4E will pull out a year early from a contract to provide training schemes for offenders in eight prisons in Kent. According to the Universities and Colleges Union, A4e has announced it is unable to run the Offenders’ Learning and Skills Services for the third year because it stands to make a loss of £892,000. If A4E wins the Hull CLAC tender, it looks as though that will be at the expense of the 70 year old citizen’s advice bureau which will be forced to close. Let’s hope the powers-that-be in Hull are confident that A4E is in it for the long-term.
A version of this article was in the New Law Journal, June 27
The likes of the Co-Op, the AA, after-the-event insurer DAS and most recently the consumer group Which? have all announced an intention to take advantage of the Legal Services Act. Alternative business structures (ABSs), which will enable firms to be partly owned by non-lawyers, are expected to arrive around 2011. The worst fear of legal aid lawyers is that this relaxation will prompt a bout of asset-stripping on the High Street.
In the July issue of Legal Action, we ask big business what are its intentions (if any) for social welfare law. Would, for example, the Co-Op move into legal aid? ‘It depends on demand and it also depends on how the membership might view it,’ replies Eddie Ryan, managing director of the Co-operative Legal Services. Ryan reckons it isn’t a huge stretch of the imagination for them to do so but draws the line at ‘certain actions that are socially unacceptable’ (such as representing drink-driving Co-Op members).
It is easy to see the provision of ‘access to justice’ fitting into the retail giant’s ‘ethical’ corporate agenda. They are already talking the talk. Ryan describes the Co-Op’s relationship with its members as ‘wrapping our arms about people who need our help’. The Co-Op has already set up its own legal services in anticipation of the liberalisation. The rhetoric at the moment outstrips reality but the potential is huge. It is already available to four million members, plus 1.5 million policy holders who have legal expenses insurance (LEI) attached to motor and household insurance.
Which? recently announced the expansion of its legal service in anticipation of the new regime. Subscribers pay £51 a year and last year it provided up to 60,000 pieces of advice last year. Which? (like the Co-Op) defines its service in access to justice terms. ‘Lots of the cases that we do would probably fall under the radar of a typical high-street law firm,’ says Which?’s head of legal Gordon Wilson says. ‘People don’t know where else to go, they aren’t sure what their rights are and how to exercise them.’
The Legal Services Act will re-energise the legal expenses industry. ABSs mean that insurers will be able to streamline their business model by dispensing with cumbersome law firm panels. Coverage is already huge and the insurer DAS reckons that there are 10 UK million policy holders. For Kathryn Mortimer, its head of legal services, the relationship between LEI and publicly-funded advice is clear. ‘It is an alternative to legal aid,’ she says. Insurers are hoping for a more sympathetic environment for their businesses - in particular, a lifting of the restriction of the right of policy holders to choose their own lawyers. ‘The government needs to watch very carefully that they don’t alienate the LEI market because we’re picking up the tab for clinical negligence, personal injury, contract and property disputes which the Legal Services Commission doesn’t cover.’
As Which?, a long-time advocate for LEI, noted in 2001 one of its deficiencies of legal insurance products was that cover was heavily prescribed and policy-holders if they knew they had LEI at all (many were oblivious) didn’t know what exactly is covered. The pressure is on to develop wide-ranging services to offer members total legal protection. The ‘demand and appetite from members is for full-service’, Which?’s Gordon Wilson acknowledges. So will it take advantage of the forthcoming liberalisation and set up or take over a firm which covers everything including legal aid? ‘I would not want to answer that at the moment,’ he replies.
Not everyone is waiting for the arrival of ABSs. Sheffield-based A4E, through its partnership with the legal aid firm Howells, has scored a notable hat-trick: winning tenders for Community Legal Advice, the Leicester CLAC (community legal advice centre) and is now preferred bidder in Hull CLAC.
The provision of high quality legal advice for those who can’t afford to pay privately is critical. When it comes to tenders, one hopes that the lure of new private sector interest shouldn’t take precedence over the committed but beleaguered network of private practice firms and advisers. LAG recently learnt A4E will pull out a year early from a contract to provide training schemes for offenders in eight prisons in Kent. According to the Universities and Colleges Union, A4e has announced it is unable to run the Offenders’ Learning and Skills Services for the third year because it stands to make a loss of £892,000. If A4E wins the Hull CLAC tender, it looks as though that will be at the expense of the 70 year old citizen’s advice bureau which will be forced to close. Let’s hope the powers-that-be in Hull are confident that A4E is in it for the long-term.
A version of this article was in the New Law Journal, June 27
Friday, 30 May 2008
In a fix
Jon Robins, LAG’s director of campaigns, on the impact of fixed fees on mental health work. The cracks are already beginning to show...
Is publicly-funded mental health law heading for a collective breakdown? This is an issue we look at in the forthcoming June issue of Legal Action. That seems to be the view of leading practitioners convinced that, ironically, it is in the area of legal representation for the most vulnerable that Lord Carter’s radical reforms are going to have the most catastrophic impact.
The cracks apparently are already beginning to show. Last month, 11 solicitors’ firms around Bristol wrote to the Legal Services Commission anticipating an ‘impending crisis’ as a direct result of the introduction of fixed fees in January. Disturbingly, the firms reported the ‘first signs of patients being left unrepresented’ as remaining firms were ‘heavily overloaded’. A patient detained under the Mental Health Act, Section 2, was not able to find a lawyer despite 15 telephone calls being made and the hearing had to be delayed to find a lawyer. A tribunal for a patient detained in a regional secure unit was adjourned, again, because there were no lawyers. ‘We would be the first to grieve over the necessity of turning away needy and vulnerable clients,’ they said. ‘This will become the routine unless drastic action is taken to stem the tide of those leaving the work and fund it in such a way that firms are able to recruit replacements.’
Richard Charlton, of the Mental Health Lawyers Association, has predicted that the new regime will ‘rapidly accelerate the departure of experienced practitioners from the field to the point where there will be a complete collapse of representation in some, if not large, parts of the country’. The Legal Services Commission (LSC) dismisses such views predicting, instead, that three-quarters of the 300-odd firms left doing mental health work will be better off. It also dismisses fears of a legal aid ‘exodus’ pointing to a massively oversubscribed bid round that the LSC ran at the end of last year.
But it’s a big risk on the part of Government. Once specialist firms and acknowledged experts leave the field, it's difficult (if not impossible) to replace them. As part of the Law Society deal, the newly formed Civil Consultative Group will review the provision of mental health advice. ‘We are talking about people’s liberty,’ Patrick Reeve, head of civil strategy at the LSC, told LAG. ‘In other areas of work like debt or welfare benefits where we have a fixed budget, it is a question of how we split that budget. In mental health it’s about making sure that everybody that needs access to justice has access.’ Reeve also said that if any changes are to be made they would be made under the new contract in 2010. ‘We have no intention of brushing it under the carpet,’ he adds. Let’s hope not.
Is publicly-funded mental health law heading for a collective breakdown? This is an issue we look at in the forthcoming June issue of Legal Action. That seems to be the view of leading practitioners convinced that, ironically, it is in the area of legal representation for the most vulnerable that Lord Carter’s radical reforms are going to have the most catastrophic impact.
The cracks apparently are already beginning to show. Last month, 11 solicitors’ firms around Bristol wrote to the Legal Services Commission anticipating an ‘impending crisis’ as a direct result of the introduction of fixed fees in January. Disturbingly, the firms reported the ‘first signs of patients being left unrepresented’ as remaining firms were ‘heavily overloaded’. A patient detained under the Mental Health Act, Section 2, was not able to find a lawyer despite 15 telephone calls being made and the hearing had to be delayed to find a lawyer. A tribunal for a patient detained in a regional secure unit was adjourned, again, because there were no lawyers. ‘We would be the first to grieve over the necessity of turning away needy and vulnerable clients,’ they said. ‘This will become the routine unless drastic action is taken to stem the tide of those leaving the work and fund it in such a way that firms are able to recruit replacements.’
Richard Charlton, of the Mental Health Lawyers Association, has predicted that the new regime will ‘rapidly accelerate the departure of experienced practitioners from the field to the point where there will be a complete collapse of representation in some, if not large, parts of the country’. The Legal Services Commission (LSC) dismisses such views predicting, instead, that three-quarters of the 300-odd firms left doing mental health work will be better off. It also dismisses fears of a legal aid ‘exodus’ pointing to a massively oversubscribed bid round that the LSC ran at the end of last year.
But it’s a big risk on the part of Government. Once specialist firms and acknowledged experts leave the field, it's difficult (if not impossible) to replace them. As part of the Law Society deal, the newly formed Civil Consultative Group will review the provision of mental health advice. ‘We are talking about people’s liberty,’ Patrick Reeve, head of civil strategy at the LSC, told LAG. ‘In other areas of work like debt or welfare benefits where we have a fixed budget, it is a question of how we split that budget. In mental health it’s about making sure that everybody that needs access to justice has access.’ Reeve also said that if any changes are to be made they would be made under the new contract in 2010. ‘We have no intention of brushing it under the carpet,’ he adds. Let’s hope not.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Watch out for footloose predators
David Harker, chief executive of Citizens Advice, responds to last week’s posting by Crispin Passmore, director of the Community Legal Service
Whilst I admire the passion with which Crispin pursues a strategy of improving access to advice by means of a winner takes all bidding exercise, I think it’s misconceived and, combined with the impact of the new LSC contract, may wreak havoc across the advice sector in England and Wales. The possible closure of Hull CAB, with its 70-year history of serving its community, and the financial instability of some law centres following the introduction of the fixed fee regime, may be the start of the destruction of much valuable social infrastructure.
Frustration with the failures of Community Legal Service Partnerships, combined with an unquestioning belief in the power of contestable markets, has led to an error of judgement. Wishing to see ‘three, four five or more top quality bids’ in each area, favours footloose predators with the resources to bid and to take the occasional loss without damage not evolving cash strapped community agencies for whom failure may spell disaster.
The solutions which Crispin and the LSC have adopted may be wrong but the underlying analysis is correct. What he describes as ‘fragmented services presenting an un-navigable advice maze to clients faced with domestic violence, illegal eviction and poverty’ does need to change. That’s recognised by Citizens Advice and our bureaux across the country. To make his point, he exaggerates the degree of fragmentation in Hull, where the CAB had developed new specialist quality marked services in employment and immigration, to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of solicitors from LSC contracts.
Across the country here is an immense amount of fantastic work being done by some amazingly committed and dedicated people, many of them volunteers. The question is how to build on that to achieve improved access for more people. The answer is not to do what may well happen in Hull and to destroy existing institutions in pursuit of an unproven contention that new providers to the area can do it better.
That’s why there’s been such a fierce reaction by local people, community leaders and the media to the announcement that the partnership between a private sector company, A4E, and a regional firm of solicitors Howells is the preferred bidder. It’s not that the CAB is a bad loser but it’s the genuine reaction of a community that fears it might lose a valued and trusted service.
The two principle funders of local Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales are local authorities, which last year provided £66 million (46%), and the Legal Services Commission which provided £30 million (20%). These are very different institutions with differing objectives. The LSC’s objectives are narrow, whilst those of local authorities are wider and embrace the concept of community well being. Pooling these two sources of funding and devising a tender specification which adequately captured both sets of objectives is a major challenge which hasn’t been done successfully. The result is that insufficient value is placed on the role of CAB and others in creating viable and cohesive communities, using volunteers (some of whom may have previously been clients) acting as a centre for the development of new national and local initiatives like financial education, credit unions, and using client evidence locally, regionally and nationally to change policies. Destroying these institutions impoverishes the lives of the communities they serve. I suspect that this dawning realisation is leading councillors in Hull to think again and causing many local authorities to think long and hard before joining the world of CLACs and CLANs. Perhaps it will also lead national government to reflect upon the contradiction between its policies for strengthening communities and the marketisation of legal aid.
Whilst I admire the passion with which Crispin pursues a strategy of improving access to advice by means of a winner takes all bidding exercise, I think it’s misconceived and, combined with the impact of the new LSC contract, may wreak havoc across the advice sector in England and Wales. The possible closure of Hull CAB, with its 70-year history of serving its community, and the financial instability of some law centres following the introduction of the fixed fee regime, may be the start of the destruction of much valuable social infrastructure.
Frustration with the failures of Community Legal Service Partnerships, combined with an unquestioning belief in the power of contestable markets, has led to an error of judgement. Wishing to see ‘three, four five or more top quality bids’ in each area, favours footloose predators with the resources to bid and to take the occasional loss without damage not evolving cash strapped community agencies for whom failure may spell disaster.
The solutions which Crispin and the LSC have adopted may be wrong but the underlying analysis is correct. What he describes as ‘fragmented services presenting an un-navigable advice maze to clients faced with domestic violence, illegal eviction and poverty’ does need to change. That’s recognised by Citizens Advice and our bureaux across the country. To make his point, he exaggerates the degree of fragmentation in Hull, where the CAB had developed new specialist quality marked services in employment and immigration, to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of solicitors from LSC contracts.
Across the country here is an immense amount of fantastic work being done by some amazingly committed and dedicated people, many of them volunteers. The question is how to build on that to achieve improved access for more people. The answer is not to do what may well happen in Hull and to destroy existing institutions in pursuit of an unproven contention that new providers to the area can do it better.
That’s why there’s been such a fierce reaction by local people, community leaders and the media to the announcement that the partnership between a private sector company, A4E, and a regional firm of solicitors Howells is the preferred bidder. It’s not that the CAB is a bad loser but it’s the genuine reaction of a community that fears it might lose a valued and trusted service.
The two principle funders of local Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales are local authorities, which last year provided £66 million (46%), and the Legal Services Commission which provided £30 million (20%). These are very different institutions with differing objectives. The LSC’s objectives are narrow, whilst those of local authorities are wider and embrace the concept of community well being. Pooling these two sources of funding and devising a tender specification which adequately captured both sets of objectives is a major challenge which hasn’t been done successfully. The result is that insufficient value is placed on the role of CAB and others in creating viable and cohesive communities, using volunteers (some of whom may have previously been clients) acting as a centre for the development of new national and local initiatives like financial education, credit unions, and using client evidence locally, regionally and nationally to change policies. Destroying these institutions impoverishes the lives of the communities they serve. I suspect that this dawning realisation is leading councillors in Hull to think again and causing many local authorities to think long and hard before joining the world of CLACs and CLANs. Perhaps it will also lead national government to reflect upon the contradiction between its policies for strengthening communities and the marketisation of legal aid.
Thursday, 8 May 2008
No apologies
Crispin Passmore head of the Community Legal Service at the LSC argues that joint tenders with local authorities are the future for social welfare law services.
In the last month new Community Legal Advice services [the new name for Community Legal Advice Centres or CLACs] opened in Leicester, Derby and Portsmouth. In each of these we have jointly commissioned with the local authority a comprehensive legal and advice service covering general help and advice, specialist advice and legal representation across five social welfare law categories and family. In each of them the local community will get more help and more joined up help. They will better focus services on local priorities and reach out to people who do not access the advice they should.
There is no doubt that this is a period of significant change for providers involved in delivering general advice and legal aid for social welfare law. Having delivered the best service they can for many years, their funders are now saying that they want a different service. I do not apologise for that. In recent years we have learnt more about how current legal and advice services too often fail to meet the needs of the communities that need them – fragmented services presenting an un-navigable advice maze to clients faced with domestic violence, illegal eviction and poverty. It would be a failure of public service delivery to not respond to those criticisms.
If we track back to 2004 the LSC was criticised for poor leadership to the Community Legal Service, for falling numbers of people being helped and for gaps in services – so called ‘advice deserts’. A clear direction has been identified after careful consideration of internationally renowned academic research. It was consulted upon in 2005 and has been reconsidered by Lord Carter. Our focus now needs to be on making change happen. We are beginning to see real evidence of positive change in terms of more people helped, better access and joined up services.
Yet, understandably, there is real discomfort that a CAB faces the loss of its contract to deliver debt and benefits advice in Hull as they have not been successful in the tender for a new Community Legal Advice service to open there. However, under previous arrangements clients needing representation under a legal aid certificate had to be referred elsewhere, as did those whose debt and benefits problems were combined with relationship breakdown, homelessness or discrimination at work.
It is disappointing that so many commentators wish to defend services that clients cannot access or that cannot provide the joined up service that clients need. Across Hull four firms or agencies have been delivering social welfare law advice. None have community care contracts, one does only housing and one does only employment. The people of Hull will now get a much improved service.
So what about the future? I do not want the tender process for future Community Legal Advice services to be about finding the one good provider – it is not about weeding out poor quality. I want three, four, five or more top quality bids for each Community Legal Advice service. I doubt they will ever be just each of the current local providers looking to expand to cover the full range of services. More likely is that bids will come from mergers or partnerships of local agencies, regional suppliers such as A4E/Howells, national providers such as Shelter or Citizens Advice and other local providers interested in providing social welfare law services only if they are on an economically viable scale. We are already seeing this pattern emerge with better and better bids in each tender exercise and interesting new relationships forming amongst providers. Good bids will inevitably not succeed where competition is strong – I hope that providers continue to respond to not winning one tender by innovating to deliver better services in their next bid. We know that recent bidders have already been doing this and those that resist change risk being left behind.
In the future competition will come from these regional and national and nearby local providers – all having expertise in delivering joined up services, understanding local needs and, importantly, all committed to delivering the services that Government and Local Government want to procure for their citizens.
Crispin Passmore, Community Legal Service
In the last month new Community Legal Advice services [the new name for Community Legal Advice Centres or CLACs] opened in Leicester, Derby and Portsmouth. In each of these we have jointly commissioned with the local authority a comprehensive legal and advice service covering general help and advice, specialist advice and legal representation across five social welfare law categories and family. In each of them the local community will get more help and more joined up help. They will better focus services on local priorities and reach out to people who do not access the advice they should.
There is no doubt that this is a period of significant change for providers involved in delivering general advice and legal aid for social welfare law. Having delivered the best service they can for many years, their funders are now saying that they want a different service. I do not apologise for that. In recent years we have learnt more about how current legal and advice services too often fail to meet the needs of the communities that need them – fragmented services presenting an un-navigable advice maze to clients faced with domestic violence, illegal eviction and poverty. It would be a failure of public service delivery to not respond to those criticisms.
If we track back to 2004 the LSC was criticised for poor leadership to the Community Legal Service, for falling numbers of people being helped and for gaps in services – so called ‘advice deserts’. A clear direction has been identified after careful consideration of internationally renowned academic research. It was consulted upon in 2005 and has been reconsidered by Lord Carter. Our focus now needs to be on making change happen. We are beginning to see real evidence of positive change in terms of more people helped, better access and joined up services.
Yet, understandably, there is real discomfort that a CAB faces the loss of its contract to deliver debt and benefits advice in Hull as they have not been successful in the tender for a new Community Legal Advice service to open there. However, under previous arrangements clients needing representation under a legal aid certificate had to be referred elsewhere, as did those whose debt and benefits problems were combined with relationship breakdown, homelessness or discrimination at work.
It is disappointing that so many commentators wish to defend services that clients cannot access or that cannot provide the joined up service that clients need. Across Hull four firms or agencies have been delivering social welfare law advice. None have community care contracts, one does only housing and one does only employment. The people of Hull will now get a much improved service.
So what about the future? I do not want the tender process for future Community Legal Advice services to be about finding the one good provider – it is not about weeding out poor quality. I want three, four, five or more top quality bids for each Community Legal Advice service. I doubt they will ever be just each of the current local providers looking to expand to cover the full range of services. More likely is that bids will come from mergers or partnerships of local agencies, regional suppliers such as A4E/Howells, national providers such as Shelter or Citizens Advice and other local providers interested in providing social welfare law services only if they are on an economically viable scale. We are already seeing this pattern emerge with better and better bids in each tender exercise and interesting new relationships forming amongst providers. Good bids will inevitably not succeed where competition is strong – I hope that providers continue to respond to not winning one tender by innovating to deliver better services in their next bid. We know that recent bidders have already been doing this and those that resist change risk being left behind.
In the future competition will come from these regional and national and nearby local providers – all having expertise in delivering joined up services, understanding local needs and, importantly, all committed to delivering the services that Government and Local Government want to procure for their citizens.
Crispin Passmore, Community Legal Service
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
News Blog Changing
The news stories on the Cornwall CLAN and the Liverpool 8 Law Centre have moved to the Latest News section of our website.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Civil Legal Aid Contract Deal
Legal aid lawyers and their paymasters announced a cessation in hostilities. A joint statement was published by the Law Society, the Legal Services Commission (LSC) and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) on 2nd April announcing an agreement following ‘a series of open, constructive and pragmatic discussions’. Chancery Lane claims that its negotiations have secured the following ‘concessions’ to the reform programme:
The joint statement said that the agreement was ‘designed to provide a significant period of certainty and stability’ for providers to ‘enable them to adapt to the changes to the legal aid system that have already been introduced and to consider and plan for the future’.
There was a note of contrition on the part of the LSC and the MOJ over their stance on the legal challenges to the unified contract and its conflict with public procurement regulations. ‘They regret that the implications of those regulations were not recognised earlier and acknowledge that the Law Society was justified in commencing those proceedings,’ the statement said.
Chancery Lane will discontinue its judicial review proceedings launched against the LSC in February on the strength of the deal which it was claimed would ‘provide tangible benefits for legal aid practitioners’ and which would ‘establish procedures designed to ensure a closer and more constructive relationship between parties in the future’.
Bill Montague, managing partner of Dexter Montague & Partners, who jointly brought claims against the LSC with the Law Society last year, said that settlement marked ‘a watershed in the relationship between legal aid practitioners and the LSC’. Des Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, said that the ‘more consultative approach embraced by the LSC’ would ‘hopefully allow us to work with them to address some of the most pressing issues’. ‘However, we still have serious concerns about the future of legal aid,' he added.
Read Jon Robbins' article This is Jacqui: she's here to save you from eviction in The Observer Sunday 13 April 2008.
- delaying the introduction of community legal advice centres (CLACs) and community legal advice networks (CLANs) until April 2010. There are 15 in the pipeline with four yet to be announced;
- a 2% increase on non-family fixed fees;
- an increase on childcare pre-proceeding fixed fees from £347 to £405;
- a 5% increase in fees for mental health and immigration tribunal work;
- delaying the introduction of family litigators' graduated fees;
- an amnesty on historic unrecouped payments on account over six years and where the amount outstanding is less than £20,000;
- delaying the introduction of best value tendering in criminal legal aid by six months to a date ‘not before’ July 2009;
- and no price competitive tendering for civil law family work before 2013.
The joint statement said that the agreement was ‘designed to provide a significant period of certainty and stability’ for providers to ‘enable them to adapt to the changes to the legal aid system that have already been introduced and to consider and plan for the future’.
There was a note of contrition on the part of the LSC and the MOJ over their stance on the legal challenges to the unified contract and its conflict with public procurement regulations. ‘They regret that the implications of those regulations were not recognised earlier and acknowledge that the Law Society was justified in commencing those proceedings,’ the statement said.
Chancery Lane will discontinue its judicial review proceedings launched against the LSC in February on the strength of the deal which it was claimed would ‘provide tangible benefits for legal aid practitioners’ and which would ‘establish procedures designed to ensure a closer and more constructive relationship between parties in the future’.
Bill Montague, managing partner of Dexter Montague & Partners, who jointly brought claims against the LSC with the Law Society last year, said that settlement marked ‘a watershed in the relationship between legal aid practitioners and the LSC’. Des Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, said that the ‘more consultative approach embraced by the LSC’ would ‘hopefully allow us to work with them to address some of the most pressing issues’. ‘However, we still have serious concerns about the future of legal aid,' he added.
Read Jon Robbins' article This is Jacqui: she's here to save you from eviction in The Observer Sunday 13 April 2008.
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