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.
Showing posts with label LSC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LSC. Show all posts
Friday, 30 May 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Law Centres in Crisis
LAG has learnt that Gateshead Law Centre called in the receivers last Friday (7th March) after getting into financial difficulties. Gateshead joins Stockport Law Centre which closed its doors in November last year due to problems meeting the targets under the Legal Services Commission’s new fixed fee contracts.
Gateshead Law Centre was part of the first Community Legal Advice Centre (CLAC) the Legal Services flagship policy for civil legal services which has had difficulties getting off the ground. LAG understands that the continuation of the CLAC is in doubt, and decisions have yet to be made on whether the contract for the CLAC will be tendered again.
A survey published today by the Law Centres Federation indicates that twenty out of the 58 remaining Law Centres are having difficulties meeting the new targets. There are eight centres claiming to be under risk of closing. Among these is the largest law centre, South West London Law Centres which has a turnover approaching £2m and has offices in Battersea, Kingston and Wandsworth.
The centre’s Director Michael Ashe fears they will be forced to close leaving clients no-where to go. ‘The work we do is not glamorous, but it is vital,” he says. “There are desperate people queuing outside our doors for hours each night in the depths of winter to see volunteer advisers because their low-wage jobs mean they are not eligible for legal aid….We stay at work in the evenings and come in at weekends because we cannot balance the books any other way, and because there is always another vulnerable person denied their rights who we cannot let down. Like doctors, nurses and teachers, we just want to be allowed to do our job, and do it well.”
“LAG would urge the Government and LSC to look again at the fixed fee regime, as clearly the fees are too low to sustain many services” says Steve Hynes, Director of LAG. A report on the plight of Law Centres will be published in next months Legal Action.
Gateshead Law Centre was part of the first Community Legal Advice Centre (CLAC) the Legal Services flagship policy for civil legal services which has had difficulties getting off the ground. LAG understands that the continuation of the CLAC is in doubt, and decisions have yet to be made on whether the contract for the CLAC will be tendered again.
A survey published today by the Law Centres Federation indicates that twenty out of the 58 remaining Law Centres are having difficulties meeting the new targets. There are eight centres claiming to be under risk of closing. Among these is the largest law centre, South West London Law Centres which has a turnover approaching £2m and has offices in Battersea, Kingston and Wandsworth.
The centre’s Director Michael Ashe fears they will be forced to close leaving clients no-where to go. ‘The work we do is not glamorous, but it is vital,” he says. “There are desperate people queuing outside our doors for hours each night in the depths of winter to see volunteer advisers because their low-wage jobs mean they are not eligible for legal aid….We stay at work in the evenings and come in at weekends because we cannot balance the books any other way, and because there is always another vulnerable person denied their rights who we cannot let down. Like doctors, nurses and teachers, we just want to be allowed to do our job, and do it well.”
“LAG would urge the Government and LSC to look again at the fixed fee regime, as clearly the fees are too low to sustain many services” says Steve Hynes, Director of LAG. A report on the plight of Law Centres will be published in next months Legal Action.
Monday, 3 March 2008
Thumbs down for BVT plan
Criminal defence lawyers have given a resounding vote of no confidence to government plans for the proposed ‘best value tendering’ regime under which they would be expected to bid for work. An online survey of 361 legal aid lawyers found that almost two thirds (67%) of solicitors described themselves as ‘strongly against’ the proposals. The LSC is currently consulting on the BVT scheme and that consultation closed this week (March 3rd).
The survey ‘not only highlights that there is a lack of support for BVT across the profession’ but it also ‘reveals some of the fears solicitors have about the LSC's current proposals’, reckons Richard Miller, the Law Society’s legal aid manager. He goes on to say that ‘the fact that 85% said they would not bid for the contracts again when they come up for renewal if they failed first time around starkly demonstrates one of the major problems with the proposals’. ‘We have still seen no answer to the question how there can be adequate competition in any second round of bidding,’ he adds.
Chancery Lane points to ‘broader implications’ of BVT insofar as over half of the respondent firms (56%) undertake civil legal aid work and almost three-quarters (74%) of those firms reckon there would be ‘an adverse impact on their civil legal aid work if they were unsuccessful with their criminal bids’.
The Criminal Law Solicitors Association also published its response rejecting the proposed introduction of Best Value Tendering (BVT). It argues that the proposals ‘fail on every test that the LSC set themselves namely “to create a sustainable legal aid system, with quality, access and value for money at its heart”’. It says that the plan is ‘fundamentally flawed’.
ends
The survey ‘not only highlights that there is a lack of support for BVT across the profession’ but it also ‘reveals some of the fears solicitors have about the LSC's current proposals’, reckons Richard Miller, the Law Society’s legal aid manager. He goes on to say that ‘the fact that 85% said they would not bid for the contracts again when they come up for renewal if they failed first time around starkly demonstrates one of the major problems with the proposals’. ‘We have still seen no answer to the question how there can be adequate competition in any second round of bidding,’ he adds.
Chancery Lane points to ‘broader implications’ of BVT insofar as over half of the respondent firms (56%) undertake civil legal aid work and almost three-quarters (74%) of those firms reckon there would be ‘an adverse impact on their civil legal aid work if they were unsuccessful with their criminal bids’.
The Criminal Law Solicitors Association also published its response rejecting the proposed introduction of Best Value Tendering (BVT). It argues that the proposals ‘fail on every test that the LSC set themselves namely “to create a sustainable legal aid system, with quality, access and value for money at its heart”’. It says that the plan is ‘fundamentally flawed’.
ends
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)