Citizens Advice held its social policy law conference this month in London. The theme of the conference was 'Tackling poverty - taking action now', but one of the undercurrents in the conference was the controversy over Community Legal Advice Centres (CLACs)- the Legal Services Commission's tenders designed to tackle clusters of problems or to undermine the not-for-profit (NFP) sector depending on your point of view.
Guest speaker Lisa Harker, co-director of the Institute of Public Policy Research, asserted that '[Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx)] were one stop shops before the government started thinking about one stop shops.' Perhaps she was trying to stir up some controversy as the founder and chairperson of A4e, Emma Harrison, was also a speaker.
A4e was established in 1986 by Harrison in Sheffield to provide employment training to the unemployed. The now internationally successful company recently won the tender to run the Hull CLAC at the expense of Hull CAB. Harrison deftly avoided any discussion of CLACs by saying that she did not want to be drawn into a discussion on running advice services as 'much smarter people than I work on that'. Her main message seemed to be that A4e wanted to make it 'a cool thing to seek advice, glamorous, even sexy'. She said: 'Too often people see advice as a last resort rather than a first port of call.'
In a bout of what may be described as CLAC shadow boxing, Teresa Perchard, director of public policy at Citizens Advice, put questions to Harrison on 'persuading local councils to fund advice'. Harrison parried these by criticising the sector: 'I saw an advice centre the other day at which the first four people waiting outside were let in and the rest were sent away. Wrong, wrong, wrong.' Harrison also castigated centres for 'not even having nice chairs for people to sit on', adding that, 'the new advice centre in Hull will be the new way for advice to be offered'.
While delegates seemed annoyed by Harrison's comments, debate rightly swung back to the issue of poverty and the difficulties CABx clients are facing. Harrison's main experience is in employment training and so maybe the NFP advice world is a bit of a culture shock to her, but as for A4e making advice 'glamorous' or even 'sexy', it is hardly something you could accuse employment training of being. Harrison's story of only four people being let into an advice centre does have a ring of familiarity - such rationing of advice services is usually forced on providers through lack of resources rather than any lack of commitment to serving clients though. What would A4e do if the money is insufficient to provide a decent service or any new chairs for that matter, when the Hull CLAC is up for tender again?
Too often NFP advice services have proved their commitment to their clients by struggling on in such circumstances, not very good from a business point of view, but then people tend to work in advice services because they are motivated by more than just making a profit.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Justice Committee Probes Legal Aid Changes
Lord Bach was called before the House of Commons Justice Committee yesterday (10th December) to give his assessment of the impact of the legal aid changes.
Bach a former criminal legal aid barrister painted a relatively bright picture telling the committee that, “Working relationships between the LSC and practitioners have improved due to the agreement with the Law Society and the recent agreement with the Bar on the Very High Cost Cases panel.” In response to questions from MPs worried about the availability of legal aid he said, “We have not found much problems with supply. The LSC has good links at a local level as it is represented on all 42 Criminal Justice Boards and the 39 Family Justice Boards.” The minister did acknowledge that “the changes have not been easy for the Not for Profit sector” saying they were having difficulties with the switch to fixed fees. Julie Morgan MP also raised concerns about the impact of the CLACs and CLANs on the NfP sector whom she feared were being “squeezed out of the tenders” he said that he would “take back her concerns.”
Committee Chair Alan Beith MP raised the issue of family law cases and the fear that the increase in court fees was discouraging local authorities from bringing care cases. Bach replied, “This is a serious concern which I am giving a lot of thought to at the moment because of the tragic cases of the last few weeks. The government has given £40 million to Local Authorities to compensate them for the increase in fees. This will continue…We can find no evidence that Local Authorities are not taking cases. In recent weeks the number of public law cases has been going up.” LAG along with other commentators believes the numbers of public law family cases are likely to rise to at least 90% of the level before the fee increase and the introduction of the Public Law Outline. Undoubtedly, the pressure is on local authorities to intervene in more cases due the recent tragic cases such as that of baby P.
Overall is Lord Bach’s relatively upbeat assessment of the impact of the legal aid changes justified? What practitioners tell LAG is that the changes have led to cuts in income and some are feeling the pressure. With the recession though it is likely there will no shortage of firms bidding for any new matter starts being offered by the LSC. Especially with legal help work what seems to be happening is that firms and the NfP agencies are being forced to adjust what they do for clients to fit the fees offered. The fear is that clients are getting a worse service.
Bach a former criminal legal aid barrister painted a relatively bright picture telling the committee that, “Working relationships between the LSC and practitioners have improved due to the agreement with the Law Society and the recent agreement with the Bar on the Very High Cost Cases panel.” In response to questions from MPs worried about the availability of legal aid he said, “We have not found much problems with supply. The LSC has good links at a local level as it is represented on all 42 Criminal Justice Boards and the 39 Family Justice Boards.” The minister did acknowledge that “the changes have not been easy for the Not for Profit sector” saying they were having difficulties with the switch to fixed fees. Julie Morgan MP also raised concerns about the impact of the CLACs and CLANs on the NfP sector whom she feared were being “squeezed out of the tenders” he said that he would “take back her concerns.”
Committee Chair Alan Beith MP raised the issue of family law cases and the fear that the increase in court fees was discouraging local authorities from bringing care cases. Bach replied, “This is a serious concern which I am giving a lot of thought to at the moment because of the tragic cases of the last few weeks. The government has given £40 million to Local Authorities to compensate them for the increase in fees. This will continue…We can find no evidence that Local Authorities are not taking cases. In recent weeks the number of public law cases has been going up.” LAG along with other commentators believes the numbers of public law family cases are likely to rise to at least 90% of the level before the fee increase and the introduction of the Public Law Outline. Undoubtedly, the pressure is on local authorities to intervene in more cases due the recent tragic cases such as that of baby P.
Overall is Lord Bach’s relatively upbeat assessment of the impact of the legal aid changes justified? What practitioners tell LAG is that the changes have led to cuts in income and some are feeling the pressure. With the recession though it is likely there will no shortage of firms bidding for any new matter starts being offered by the LSC. Especially with legal help work what seems to be happening is that firms and the NfP agencies are being forced to adjust what they do for clients to fit the fees offered. The fear is that clients are getting a worse service.
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Family Affair
Do you remember legal aid? The question isn’t meant to be facetious. No doubt, there’s a small but committed section of the NLJ readership resolutely dedicated to publicly-funded law (and a rather larger section that used to be). New figures published in last month’s Legal Action indicate that, whilst legal aid might still be an income stream for practitioners, it is increasingly an irrelevance as far as many of their clients are concerned.
Our current legal aid system was, as readers well know, conceived as part of the welfare state in 1949 at a time when free access to justice was viewed as no less a fundamental right than free education or healthcare. The legal aid scheme then covered eight out of ten people and cover remained at two thirds into the mid-1980s.
New Labour came into power in 1997 promising a new Community Legal Service and eligibility levels were down to 52%. The government currently spends £2 billion of taxpayers’ money a year on publicly-funded legal advice – barely enough to keep the NHS going for a couple of weeks – however ministers insist that such a level of commitment is ‘non-sustainable’. Now we learn from the Ministry of Justice that less than one in three of clients are eligible - just 29% of the population.
That sobering statistic puts the legal aid reform programme into context, not least the current dispute over the family bar scheme. The Legal Services Commission is currently working on its proposals for the graduated fee scheme ‘harmonising’ (or scrapping) the difference in rates between ‘self employed family advocates’ and ‘solicitor-owned businesses but often employing barristers as well’. The LSC appears to be bending over backwards not to antagonise the Bar (perhaps, mindful of the VHCCs fiasco), but the Law Society has no such qualms. The Family Law Bar Association (FLBA) purports to advocate ‘equal pay for equal work’ but is concerned that the LSC proposals do not ‘appreciate the distinction between simple and complex hearings’.
‘Shameless self-interest’ reckons
If the proposals are implemented, the LSC reckons they will save ‘as much £56m over the three years’. This is bad news for the QC who sends a crate of champagne to the family lawyer every time he receives an instruction for a complex child law. The solicitor assures LAG that he is prepared to make his own sacrifices in the name of equality.
The Legal Action Group speaks for the clients and not for the providers. We have no interest in dumbing down a service as essential as this but we expect a transparent and rational basis on which lawyers are paid especially when pressures on the fund are as acute as they are now.
The inequality between the pay schemes is not easy to justify however what is more difficult is the absence of a clear rationale between the two schemes. The LSC offers LAG two fully-costed (and heavily caveat-ed) examples of how the pay schemes might typically operate. In an interim hearing in a public law case, the barrister cost £446 and the solicitor £228; and the final hearing in private law child case the costs were £692 and £508 respectively. Perhaps the most sensible observation from this exercise is the arbitrary way that these figures appear to be arrived. It is neither sensible nor clear and, frankly, neither is the discrepancy between Bar and solicitors. Message to Bar: perhaps don’t put that champagne on ice.
(A version of this article appears in the New Law Journal October 24th)
Jon Robins is director of campaigns and communications with LAG
Monday, 29 September 2008
Courts Budget "Black Hole"?
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.
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, 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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)