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.

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:

• 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.

‘It is good news that the impasse between the profession and government appears to have been surmounted but these ‘concessions’ are a mixed bag. We fear that the slight fee increases don’t go far enough to arrest the damage already done to mental health or child care providers,’ says Steve Hynes, director of the Legal Action Group. ‘We’re glad to see the government taking a pause for thought over the introduction of CLACs and CLANs although we question whether they are ‘concessions’ at all or a response to a lack of interest on the part of local authorities.’

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.