Criminal legal aid solicitors met in London last week to discuss the impending introduction of best value tendering (BVT) by the Legal Services Commission (LSC). In her opening speech, Joy Merriam, chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, painted a grim picture warning that up to 80 per cent of firms might face closure.
Merriam talked about her own experience of closing her firm saying, 'It felt like a divorce'. With redundancy payments, run off insurance and other costs, she said the bill for winding up her practice came to £100,000. She feared that due to tighter LSC rules on payments many firms would be without cash to close properly. She pledged they would, 'Fight the introduction of best value tendering and we have the heart and belly to take on that fight'.
Legal aid minister Lord Bach addressed the conference after Merriam. Bach’s speech started with some pleasantries linked to the 60th anniversary of legal aid, but he moved on to say that, 'No other field of government expenditure has grown as much as legal aid. We have to face the fact total expenditure is not going up. Don’t believe any promises from the opposition'. This drew the first of many heckles from the hostile audience, 'We don’t believe them and we don’t believe you'. Bach argued that they had to identify the priorities for expenditure on legal aid and said, '… in a recession I want to protect social welfare law expenditure'.
The conference also heard speeches from LSC chair, Sir Bill Callaghan, defending BVT and Des Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, who was critical of the proposals. Hudson believed the government and LSC had reneged on a promise made by the former chair of the LSC, Sir Michael Bichard, to evaluate the BVT pilots fully prior to any general roll out. In a question and answer session Callaghan answered this point. Citing the recession he said, 'Times have changed since Sir Michael made his comments'.
While a few months ago the public position among all practitioners was hostile to BVT, off the record some would say they were relaxed about the proposals believing their firm would win. Since the publication of the document setting out the LSC’s proposals for implementing the scheme the view of practitioners in public and private has shifted decisively against BVT. Many cannot get to grips with the complex bidding process proposed. There is also bitter resentment that the Bar got a deal on very high cost cases by using a boycott, while in contrast many solicitors now face a Hobson’s choice of risking a 'suicide bid' to keep police station and magistrates' court work or pull out at a time when the recession is making it difficult to switch into other areas of law.
LAG fears a chaotic scramble to make bids followed by recriminations and litigation, which will impact on services leading to miscarriages of justice. A pause to properly evaluate the pilot schemes before rushing to implement BVT across the country would seem to be the only sensible option.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Tesco Law for social welfare law?
The Legal Services Board is keen to press ahead with plans to licence the first alternative business structures (ABSs) by 2011. ABSs will allow lawyers and other professionals to work together (in perfect harmony no doubt) in providing legal and other services. The legal profession gets worried about the prospect of the 'Tesco Law' scenario, big firms using their branding and marketing clout to monopolise personal injury and other work. The Co-op has already dipped its toe in the legal services market as it provides will writing and other services to its membership.
The reality of modern life is that people are more likely to be made aware of the need to write a will, for example, by picking up information at their supermarket or increasingly their supermarket website, than they are by calling into their high street solicitor's office. Provided conflicts of interest are regulated against and the quality and independence of advice is not compromised, access to legal services should be improved by the ABS model. Also, the experience of opening the conveyancing market showed that increased competition in legal services does drive down prices, which is always one of the main barriers to access to justice.
What LAG fears though is that ABSs will just become another way of delivering legal services in the profitable areas of law which lend themselves well to a commoditised bulk processing - conveyencing (at least pre-credit crunch) and personal injury being the obvious examples. Poor people, who need legal advice on benefits, housing and other social welfare matters, are not so profitable and providing services to them might not sit so easily with a company’s image. LAG also has a sneaking fear that such businesses might not be so keen on promoting employment and other rights if this would compromise their core business.
Nevertheless ABSs do present an opportunity. It would help access to justice immensely if supermarkets and other businesses with high public recognition could act as a conduit for accessing legal advice for people facing housing, debt and other common legal problems. Perhaps it is time for some creative thinking - in the future could we see a large legal aid firm or Citizens Advice Bureau forming an ABS with Asda to provide social welfare law services paid for by legal aid?
The reality of modern life is that people are more likely to be made aware of the need to write a will, for example, by picking up information at their supermarket or increasingly their supermarket website, than they are by calling into their high street solicitor's office. Provided conflicts of interest are regulated against and the quality and independence of advice is not compromised, access to legal services should be improved by the ABS model. Also, the experience of opening the conveyancing market showed that increased competition in legal services does drive down prices, which is always one of the main barriers to access to justice.
What LAG fears though is that ABSs will just become another way of delivering legal services in the profitable areas of law which lend themselves well to a commoditised bulk processing - conveyencing (at least pre-credit crunch) and personal injury being the obvious examples. Poor people, who need legal advice on benefits, housing and other social welfare matters, are not so profitable and providing services to them might not sit so easily with a company’s image. LAG also has a sneaking fear that such businesses might not be so keen on promoting employment and other rights if this would compromise their core business.
Nevertheless ABSs do present an opportunity. It would help access to justice immensely if supermarkets and other businesses with high public recognition could act as a conduit for accessing legal advice for people facing housing, debt and other common legal problems. Perhaps it is time for some creative thinking - in the future could we see a large legal aid firm or Citizens Advice Bureau forming an ABS with Asda to provide social welfare law services paid for by legal aid?
Monday, 27 April 2009
Reports from the audit trail … Number 2
Until January, Tracy and her husband Melvyn lived with their five kids at their family home near Derby. The home was repossessed that month on two weeks’ notice and the family offered emergency housing by the council to avoid them becoming homeless. Instead, friends stepped in. ‘At that time I was a wreck. I couldn’t cope with crowds and I didn’t want to go out. My safe haven had been taken away,’ Tracy recalls.
Tracy and Melvyn, together with their three youngest, stayed at a neighbours’ house. ‘We slept on the floor and the three boys shared a double bed with his son,’ she says. Her two eldest kids were accommodated elsewhere, one with Tracy’s sister and the other with a close friend.
I met Tracy at Derbyshire Housing Aid in March where adviser, Gavin Isham, had been sorting her family’s debt and housing problems over the last few months. ‘We came down here to get some advice and soon realised that we were going to lose the house,’ Tracy relates. ‘There was no way out of it. We’d struggled for two years on our own.’ The family’s financial problems began when her husband lost his job a couple of years ago. They were eventually forced out of their home after a lender who provided a consolidation loan of £30,000 pursued possession proceedings. Up until that point they hadn’t defaulted on their mortgage.
When Tracy comes into Derbyshire Housing Aid she has good news. The family has been given a four-bedroom council house. ‘Getting rehoused was a complete nightmare. If it hadn’t been for Gavin I don’t know what we would have done,’ she says. ‘You have to bid for your home – meanwhile my family were living all over the place.’ The lawyer also represented them in court.
Derbyshire Housing Aid is part of the Derby CLAC, or Community Legal Advice Centre. The new service, which won the tender in a straight competition with the Sheffield-based company A4e, has 38 paid staff and comprises Derby Citizens Advice and Law Centre, Derbyshire Housing Aid as well as two solicitors’ firms, the Smith Partnership and Moody & Woolley. Some 7,522 people have come to the CLAC in its first nine months and 82 per cent come from ‘priority groups’ – in other words, the unemployed, low income, black and minority ethnic groups, victims of violence etc ….
Derby CLAC is feeling the full impact of the so-called credit crunch. Under its contract with the Legal Services Commission, it is required to see clients needing specialist advice within two weeks. However, such is demand, the queue for debt work has stretched to four weeks. At Derbyshire Housing Aid, which runs the duty scheme at the local county court, four out of ten clients face possession orders. It reckons that in a three-month period ending in January, some 390 people were at risking of losing their homes. It is a 78 per cent increase on the previous year.
Chris Pass, Derby CLAC’s manager, reckons that this new-style CLAC has been well received. ‘People seem to like the fact that everything is in one place,’ he says. ‘We get a lot of people with multiple problems. If you have employment problems and you have been made redundant, then you are going to potentially have debt problems, housing problems etc. Hopefully by capturing things a bit earlier we can actually alleviate problems more quickly.’
It’s a sentiment echoed by Jude Simmons, head of community work at Community Links when I visit a couple of weeks later. Community Links is an innovative charity in Newham, East London, and in many ways is a proto-CLAC offering a wide range of advice services (although it doesn’t have employment or family contracts). ‘People don’t come to us and say that they have a letter from their creditors saying they owe them £8,000 - can we sort it out?,’ reckons Jude Simmons. ‘Often we cannot understand what they are talking about when they first come in. They don’t speak English, have mental health problems and nearly always lead really chaotic lives.’ Nearly always? ‘Yes, nearly always,’ she says.
In 2008 some 17,000 came to Community Links for help. As Simmons puts it, there is ‘a huge churn of people’ in an area where some 106 different languages are spoken. Newham is the ‘first port of call’ for many, Simmons says. ‘As soon as people make anything of themselves they move out further down the railway track to Barking and Dagenham and further away.’
How are these two very different services coping with fixed fees? Chris Pass reports that the jury is out. For example, he explains that in welfare rights, where the fixed fee is about £220 per case, the average case runs at about £180. But there are ongoing cases which are ‘basically running to about £400 … not that many but they pull the average to £220 or higher’.
In other words, there’s not much, if any, margin for comfort. Unsurprisingly, for Community Links, with its demanding clientele, the introduction of fixed fees creates a difficult business model. It is hard to make them work, explains Simmons, because ‘if we used to get paid £58 an hour and now we’re getting paid £200 a case, cases should be running at about three and a half hours. Often we haven’t really unravelled what clients want at that stage because they don’t even know what their problem is.’
But as Simmons says: ‘We have to make this work though because there are 40 people queuing outside every day. If we do not help them nobody else can.’ By the time I arrived at Community Links at 8.30am last month a long line of prospective clients was already there. Community Links reckons that eight out of ten people that wait outside are eligible for legal aid. However half won’t have the correct paper work and so have to queue again.
Last autumn students conducted a research project interviewing those waiting. The results were surprising. Apparently, people didn’t complain about the length of the wait, or having to suffer the cold outside or even the lack of privacy in giving personal details at a crowded reception. ‘They wanted magazines, toys for the children, and space for the buggies,’ reports Simmons. ‘People are in such need that they are prepared to wait all day.’
Tracy and Melvyn, together with their three youngest, stayed at a neighbours’ house. ‘We slept on the floor and the three boys shared a double bed with his son,’ she says. Her two eldest kids were accommodated elsewhere, one with Tracy’s sister and the other with a close friend.
I met Tracy at Derbyshire Housing Aid in March where adviser, Gavin Isham, had been sorting her family’s debt and housing problems over the last few months. ‘We came down here to get some advice and soon realised that we were going to lose the house,’ Tracy relates. ‘There was no way out of it. We’d struggled for two years on our own.’ The family’s financial problems began when her husband lost his job a couple of years ago. They were eventually forced out of their home after a lender who provided a consolidation loan of £30,000 pursued possession proceedings. Up until that point they hadn’t defaulted on their mortgage.
When Tracy comes into Derbyshire Housing Aid she has good news. The family has been given a four-bedroom council house. ‘Getting rehoused was a complete nightmare. If it hadn’t been for Gavin I don’t know what we would have done,’ she says. ‘You have to bid for your home – meanwhile my family were living all over the place.’ The lawyer also represented them in court.
Derbyshire Housing Aid is part of the Derby CLAC, or Community Legal Advice Centre. The new service, which won the tender in a straight competition with the Sheffield-based company A4e, has 38 paid staff and comprises Derby Citizens Advice and Law Centre, Derbyshire Housing Aid as well as two solicitors’ firms, the Smith Partnership and Moody & Woolley. Some 7,522 people have come to the CLAC in its first nine months and 82 per cent come from ‘priority groups’ – in other words, the unemployed, low income, black and minority ethnic groups, victims of violence etc ….
Derby CLAC is feeling the full impact of the so-called credit crunch. Under its contract with the Legal Services Commission, it is required to see clients needing specialist advice within two weeks. However, such is demand, the queue for debt work has stretched to four weeks. At Derbyshire Housing Aid, which runs the duty scheme at the local county court, four out of ten clients face possession orders. It reckons that in a three-month period ending in January, some 390 people were at risking of losing their homes. It is a 78 per cent increase on the previous year.
Chris Pass, Derby CLAC’s manager, reckons that this new-style CLAC has been well received. ‘People seem to like the fact that everything is in one place,’ he says. ‘We get a lot of people with multiple problems. If you have employment problems and you have been made redundant, then you are going to potentially have debt problems, housing problems etc. Hopefully by capturing things a bit earlier we can actually alleviate problems more quickly.’
It’s a sentiment echoed by Jude Simmons, head of community work at Community Links when I visit a couple of weeks later. Community Links is an innovative charity in Newham, East London, and in many ways is a proto-CLAC offering a wide range of advice services (although it doesn’t have employment or family contracts). ‘People don’t come to us and say that they have a letter from their creditors saying they owe them £8,000 - can we sort it out?,’ reckons Jude Simmons. ‘Often we cannot understand what they are talking about when they first come in. They don’t speak English, have mental health problems and nearly always lead really chaotic lives.’ Nearly always? ‘Yes, nearly always,’ she says.
In 2008 some 17,000 came to Community Links for help. As Simmons puts it, there is ‘a huge churn of people’ in an area where some 106 different languages are spoken. Newham is the ‘first port of call’ for many, Simmons says. ‘As soon as people make anything of themselves they move out further down the railway track to Barking and Dagenham and further away.’
How are these two very different services coping with fixed fees? Chris Pass reports that the jury is out. For example, he explains that in welfare rights, where the fixed fee is about £220 per case, the average case runs at about £180. But there are ongoing cases which are ‘basically running to about £400 … not that many but they pull the average to £220 or higher’.
In other words, there’s not much, if any, margin for comfort. Unsurprisingly, for Community Links, with its demanding clientele, the introduction of fixed fees creates a difficult business model. It is hard to make them work, explains Simmons, because ‘if we used to get paid £58 an hour and now we’re getting paid £200 a case, cases should be running at about three and a half hours. Often we haven’t really unravelled what clients want at that stage because they don’t even know what their problem is.’
But as Simmons says: ‘We have to make this work though because there are 40 people queuing outside every day. If we do not help them nobody else can.’ By the time I arrived at Community Links at 8.30am last month a long line of prospective clients was already there. Community Links reckons that eight out of ten people that wait outside are eligible for legal aid. However half won’t have the correct paper work and so have to queue again.
Last autumn students conducted a research project interviewing those waiting. The results were surprising. Apparently, people didn’t complain about the length of the wait, or having to suffer the cold outside or even the lack of privacy in giving personal details at a crowded reception. ‘They wanted magazines, toys for the children, and space for the buggies,’ reports Simmons. ‘People are in such need that they are prepared to wait all day.’
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Poorer areas miss out on extra legal aid cash
LAG has published an analysis of the Legal Services Commission’s (LSC’s) distribution of an extra £10 million for help with civil law problems (see: www.lag.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=92925). The figures show that many of the poorest areas in the country missed out on the cash for more cases that was supposed to counter the impact of the recession.
Liverpool, the east London boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets, Manchester and Knowsley are the top five most deprived areas according to government statistics and none of them received money for extra matter starts, to use the jargon, for debt, welfare benefits and other social welfare law work. In contrast solicitors and not-for-profit agencies such as Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx), in three out of the five most prosperous areas, West Berkshire, Surrey and Rutland were all invited to apply for the extra money. Out of the top 20 most deprived areas only three received more cash while 15 from the 20 most prosperous areas did. Overall the figures show 20 per cent of the most deprived areas got only 23 per cent of the cash, while 20 per cent of the least deprived areas got 73 per cent of the cash.
The £10 million was allocated to matter starts in both family and social welfare law in the last six months of last year by the LSC. The LSC argues that the explanation for the seemingly unfair distribution of the money is due to its ‘indicative spend formula’ which it says seeks to rectify the uneven pattern of spending across the country.
We do not know if the indicative spend formula is fair as it has not been piloted or independently verified. Even if it had been, these figures still illustrate the bizarre postcode lottery that operates in allocating legal aid funds. The recession is hitting these areas the hardest. This is illustrated by the unemployment figures which show that it is the poorest areas that are losing the most jobs. It would seem that they are also missing out on the extra legal aid needed to tackle the problems unemployment brings in its wake.
One of the main issues with legal aid services is that the pattern of provision was largely set over the last 30 years by firms choosing to set up practices, not surprisingly, where there was sufficient concentration of clients to make their businesses viable, which tended to mean urban areas. As far as not-for-profit provision goes, well-funded CABx, Law Centres® and other advice agencies tend to be sited in the same areas, those with large local authorities which have the cash to spend on advice services. When such services are available clients pursue their legal rights, but demand often outstrips supply, as the full waiting rooms of many advice agencies and solicitors illustrate.
Recent comments from the minister for legal aid, Lord Bach, indicate that the government now recognises that these services have been chronically under-funded over the years and do not cover every part of the country. The question LAG asks is does the government have the political will to establish a rational system of planning based on client needs and is it willing to find the necessary injection of cash to ensure that all of the country is covered by an adequate level of services?
Liverpool, the east London boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets, Manchester and Knowsley are the top five most deprived areas according to government statistics and none of them received money for extra matter starts, to use the jargon, for debt, welfare benefits and other social welfare law work. In contrast solicitors and not-for-profit agencies such as Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx), in three out of the five most prosperous areas, West Berkshire, Surrey and Rutland were all invited to apply for the extra money. Out of the top 20 most deprived areas only three received more cash while 15 from the 20 most prosperous areas did. Overall the figures show 20 per cent of the most deprived areas got only 23 per cent of the cash, while 20 per cent of the least deprived areas got 73 per cent of the cash.
The £10 million was allocated to matter starts in both family and social welfare law in the last six months of last year by the LSC. The LSC argues that the explanation for the seemingly unfair distribution of the money is due to its ‘indicative spend formula’ which it says seeks to rectify the uneven pattern of spending across the country.
We do not know if the indicative spend formula is fair as it has not been piloted or independently verified. Even if it had been, these figures still illustrate the bizarre postcode lottery that operates in allocating legal aid funds. The recession is hitting these areas the hardest. This is illustrated by the unemployment figures which show that it is the poorest areas that are losing the most jobs. It would seem that they are also missing out on the extra legal aid needed to tackle the problems unemployment brings in its wake.
One of the main issues with legal aid services is that the pattern of provision was largely set over the last 30 years by firms choosing to set up practices, not surprisingly, where there was sufficient concentration of clients to make their businesses viable, which tended to mean urban areas. As far as not-for-profit provision goes, well-funded CABx, Law Centres® and other advice agencies tend to be sited in the same areas, those with large local authorities which have the cash to spend on advice services. When such services are available clients pursue their legal rights, but demand often outstrips supply, as the full waiting rooms of many advice agencies and solicitors illustrate.
Recent comments from the minister for legal aid, Lord Bach, indicate that the government now recognises that these services have been chronically under-funded over the years and do not cover every part of the country. The question LAG asks is does the government have the political will to establish a rational system of planning based on client needs and is it willing to find the necessary injection of cash to ensure that all of the country is covered by an adequate level of services?
Friday, 3 April 2009
Back to the 80s
'Life on Mars' tells the story of Sam Tyler, a detective transported back in time to 1973. The imaginative TV series which has since been remade in the US portrays Tyler’s shock at the 'beat ‘em up, ask questions later' approach of 70s policing. Of course the series is fictional, but nonetheless there were serious flaws in policing methods in this period, especially in the questioning of suspects in police stations which led to many miscarriages of justice. The Guildford Four and Birmingham Six were perhaps the most notorious cases in which 'confessions' extracted in police stations by dubious means were used to convict innocent men. The government is now hinting that due to a looming budget crisis in the legal aid system it is going to water down the reforms that were brought in by the Conservatives in the mid-80s to prevent the abuse of police powers.
Last month, the government published its plans for tendering police station and magistrates' court work, a move much criticised by practitioners. By its own admission, the Legal Services Commission (LSC), which administers legal aid, says that the tendering of the services is 'not about saving money'. As well as begging the question, 'why bother then?', the fact that the tenders are unlikely to save any cash is deeply concerning for the future of civil liberties as the government looks set to resort to desperate measures to control the legal aid budget.
In a document outlining the move to tenders the LSC admitted that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) needed to find £1 billion in cuts from its £10 billion budget and had been considering cut backs in police station work as a contribution to this. It appears that the proposal under serious consideration at the MoJ is to reduce legal advice in police stations to telephone advice for all but the most serious offences such as rape, murder or terrorism. Everyone else accused of a crime will have to pay if they want to see a solicitor.
It is argued by some that civil liberties can be adequately protected by recording on camera all interviews and all a suspect's movements in a police station. LAG believes they would not be protected as in our adversarial legal system the trial effectively starts in a police station and to ensure a fair trial independent representation is essential. What is in danger of happening is the right to legal advice in the police station being undermined as a panic move to save cash and this risks turning the civil liberties clock back to the mid-80s with no public debate.
Last month, the government published its plans for tendering police station and magistrates' court work, a move much criticised by practitioners. By its own admission, the Legal Services Commission (LSC), which administers legal aid, says that the tendering of the services is 'not about saving money'. As well as begging the question, 'why bother then?', the fact that the tenders are unlikely to save any cash is deeply concerning for the future of civil liberties as the government looks set to resort to desperate measures to control the legal aid budget.
In a document outlining the move to tenders the LSC admitted that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) needed to find £1 billion in cuts from its £10 billion budget and had been considering cut backs in police station work as a contribution to this. It appears that the proposal under serious consideration at the MoJ is to reduce legal advice in police stations to telephone advice for all but the most serious offences such as rape, murder or terrorism. Everyone else accused of a crime will have to pay if they want to see a solicitor.
It is argued by some that civil liberties can be adequately protected by recording on camera all interviews and all a suspect's movements in a police station. LAG believes they would not be protected as in our adversarial legal system the trial effectively starts in a police station and to ensure a fair trial independent representation is essential. What is in danger of happening is the right to legal advice in the police station being undermined as a panic move to save cash and this risks turning the civil liberties clock back to the mid-80s with no public debate.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Reports from the audit trail ... by Jon Robins
Welcome to the Access to Justice Audit. This is the first in a series of regular blogs reporting on LAG’s new project. You can read more about the audit at www.lag.org.uk/justiceaudit. The big idea is to talk to the 'users' of legal services - in other words, your clients or those people unlucky enough to fall through the cracks and have little or no access to legal advice. We want to talk to ordinary people about their experiences of the legal system.
Huge amounts of energy and passion have been spent in recent years arguing over the best ways to reform legal aid and secure access to justice. Perhaps, from a practitioner's point of view, that has been something of an exercise in futility. We shall not dwell on Jack Straw’s recent comments on how it might be 'wise to reconsider' pay expectations.
LAG takes the view that the client voice hasn’t been heard enough in the debate. This project seeks to provide a platform for ordinary people to have their say.
The Access to Justice Audit is also a year in the life of the civil justice system. As you probably won’t need reminding, 2009 is the 60th anniversary of legal aid. It is also the year when increasing numbers of casualties of our failing economy will need effective help as they lose jobs and homes. The courts are where the victims of the credit crunch meet the unsympathetic forces of officialdom.
Is our system of publicly-funded law up to the challenge?
That’s what we want to find out. Over the last few weeks LAG has hit the road. You can check out a film about my visit to Dover talking to homeowners facing repossession action and Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) advisers (www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/11/legal-aid-justice-gap). The Guardian has launched a series based on the audit which will feature films, podcasts and articles. The first film features an interview with Jacqui O’Carroll, legal services manager at Shepway CAB. The last time LAG spoke to Jacqui (May 2008 Legal Action 7) the credit crunch was taking its grip. She vividly described what was at stake on repossessions day at the local county court where she runs the advice desk (‘Homeowners arrive unsure of what’s going on, totally ill-informed, and prepared to lose their home because they think there’s no alternative …’).
At that point, the Legal Services Commission (LSC) funded 94 advice services out of a total of 230 county courts. LAG campaigned for proper access to advice in every court. We argued that it was absolutely critical that homeowners received proper independent advice when it appeared that many were unnecessarily losing their homes because of ignorance of their legal rights, and often when they were being misled by lenders. If legal aid should do anything, surely it should do that?
The LSC now tells us that there is a housing advice desk for every repossession hearing. According to the stats, some 150,000 homeowners faced repossession hearings last year. The LSC claims that in the last six months of 2008 22,658 homeowners were advised by such services in court before possession hearings. An impressive response (never let it be said that LAG doesn’t give credit where it’s due …).
The first stop on the audit trail last month was the National Debtline (NDL) call centre in Birmingham. For many it’s the frontline of the credit crunch. The service is outside of legal aid; funding is split between the government and the credit industry. Advisers reckon the average level of debt is about £30,000 spread over credit cards. It takes a lot to shock them. They took one call from an independent financial adviser owing £255,000 on credit cards with his wife. The NDL offers what it calls ‘assisted self-help’ to callers. Their relief as they realise there are ways of dealing with debt is a powerful reminder about the effectiveness of telephone advice.
But it only goes so far. How does the NDL go about meeting demand? Paul Mullins, the charity's chief executive, reports that currently about 1,600 people a day try to get through. ‘We are currently staffed to answer about 800,’ he reports.
What about demand for face-to-face services? A few days ago I was at Community Links, an innovative charity in Newham, East London, which runs a big advice service. By the time I arrived at 8.30am there was already a queue of 40 people waiting for help. It would have been fascinating to see Jack Straw explain to them that they shouldn’t ‘confuse’ access to justice with ‘physical proximity’ to advice services as he did at the London School of Economics the other week.
The next blog will feature a report on Community Links as well as the new Derby Community Legal Advice Centre.
If you want to take part in the Access to Justice Audit, please e-mail: jrobins@lag.org.uk.
Huge amounts of energy and passion have been spent in recent years arguing over the best ways to reform legal aid and secure access to justice. Perhaps, from a practitioner's point of view, that has been something of an exercise in futility. We shall not dwell on Jack Straw’s recent comments on how it might be 'wise to reconsider' pay expectations.
LAG takes the view that the client voice hasn’t been heard enough in the debate. This project seeks to provide a platform for ordinary people to have their say.
The Access to Justice Audit is also a year in the life of the civil justice system. As you probably won’t need reminding, 2009 is the 60th anniversary of legal aid. It is also the year when increasing numbers of casualties of our failing economy will need effective help as they lose jobs and homes. The courts are where the victims of the credit crunch meet the unsympathetic forces of officialdom.
Is our system of publicly-funded law up to the challenge?
That’s what we want to find out. Over the last few weeks LAG has hit the road. You can check out a film about my visit to Dover talking to homeowners facing repossession action and Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) advisers (www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/11/legal-aid-justice-gap). The Guardian has launched a series based on the audit which will feature films, podcasts and articles. The first film features an interview with Jacqui O’Carroll, legal services manager at Shepway CAB. The last time LAG spoke to Jacqui (May 2008 Legal Action 7) the credit crunch was taking its grip. She vividly described what was at stake on repossessions day at the local county court where she runs the advice desk (‘Homeowners arrive unsure of what’s going on, totally ill-informed, and prepared to lose their home because they think there’s no alternative …’).
At that point, the Legal Services Commission (LSC) funded 94 advice services out of a total of 230 county courts. LAG campaigned for proper access to advice in every court. We argued that it was absolutely critical that homeowners received proper independent advice when it appeared that many were unnecessarily losing their homes because of ignorance of their legal rights, and often when they were being misled by lenders. If legal aid should do anything, surely it should do that?
The LSC now tells us that there is a housing advice desk for every repossession hearing. According to the stats, some 150,000 homeowners faced repossession hearings last year. The LSC claims that in the last six months of 2008 22,658 homeowners were advised by such services in court before possession hearings. An impressive response (never let it be said that LAG doesn’t give credit where it’s due …).
The first stop on the audit trail last month was the National Debtline (NDL) call centre in Birmingham. For many it’s the frontline of the credit crunch. The service is outside of legal aid; funding is split between the government and the credit industry. Advisers reckon the average level of debt is about £30,000 spread over credit cards. It takes a lot to shock them. They took one call from an independent financial adviser owing £255,000 on credit cards with his wife. The NDL offers what it calls ‘assisted self-help’ to callers. Their relief as they realise there are ways of dealing with debt is a powerful reminder about the effectiveness of telephone advice.
But it only goes so far. How does the NDL go about meeting demand? Paul Mullins, the charity's chief executive, reports that currently about 1,600 people a day try to get through. ‘We are currently staffed to answer about 800,’ he reports.
What about demand for face-to-face services? A few days ago I was at Community Links, an innovative charity in Newham, East London, which runs a big advice service. By the time I arrived at 8.30am there was already a queue of 40 people waiting for help. It would have been fascinating to see Jack Straw explain to them that they shouldn’t ‘confuse’ access to justice with ‘physical proximity’ to advice services as he did at the London School of Economics the other week.
The next blog will feature a report on Community Links as well as the new Derby Community Legal Advice Centre.
If you want to take part in the Access to Justice Audit, please e-mail: jrobins@lag.org.uk.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Making advice 'sexy'?
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.
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.
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