4.The impact on supply
85. There was a widespread view amongst respondents
to the consultation that the original proposals would result in
a large number of practitioners leaving publicly funded immigration
and asylum work. Respondents also suggested that those most likely
to remain would not be the high-quality providers, but those who
were content to do sub-standard work. This, it was suggested,
went against the grain of the work which the Legal Services Commission
and others had been doing to try to raise standards in this area.
As Nick Oakeshott, from the Refugee Legal Centre, said:
[T]here have been efforts to improve the quality
of practitioners, especially the Legal Services Commission's efforts
to finance the training of new practitioners in dispersal areas
and the funds that they have put forward in respect of that. I
think that there is a risk with equating poor practitioners with
expense and using the blunt instrument [of capping]…to try
and address that because there is a risk that the blunt instrument
is in fact a sledgehammer and squashes the decent practitioners
as well and that will not be good for anybody.[106]
86. Alison Stanley, from the Law Society, gave us
some indication of the likely scale of the problem:
The Law Society conducted a survey of immigration
practitioners and nearly half, 48%, said that they would give
up conducting publicly funded immigration asylum work for professional
reasons because it was impossible to work under the present cap.
ILPA, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, had a meeting
when the consultation first came out and 56 of the 60 firms that
were represented at that meeting also indicated that they would
consider pulling out of the system. That is extremely worrying
because in our view that would leave only the poorest practitioners
who would think they could do a decent job in the capped hours
that are…left in the system.[107]
87. Responding earlier to written questions put by
the Committee in connection with its wider inquiry into the immigration
appeals system, the DCA stated that:
It is right to say that a number of reputable
firms carrying out immigration and asylum work have indicated
that they are not able to do an effective job within the five
hour cap on work prior to the initial Home Office decision and
a four hour cap on preparation for appeals. The Immigration Law
Practitioners Association (ILPA) has made the argument that incompetent
firms which merely wish to make money out of the system will not
have a difficulty with the five hour cap.
It may well be that the most expensive firms
some of which are of good quality, will not continue in the contracting
system. However there is a trade off here between quality and
cost. If all asylum clients went to the most expensive firms which
take longest to complete a case the cost of funding lawyers would
cease to be affordable. There are many firms which have been judged
to be of an acceptable standard and which are likely to adapt
to working these proposals or to any compromise solution which
emerges following consultation. As the numbers of asylum seekers
is falling, a certain degree of loss of supply can be accommodated.[108]
This view was reinforced by the Minister's comments
in oral evidence to us.[109]
88. The DCA's revised proposals were submitted too
late for us to test the reactions of our witnesses to its alternative
approach. We were unable to explore whether, as a result of the
new proposals, there was now a reduced risk of practitioners leaving
publicly funded work in this field.
89. It is almost impossible to assess the likely
effects of what the Government is now proposing because of earlier
policy announcements—the effects of which have not been
quantified—and further announcements after the conclusion
of our oral evidence sessions. The Government's proposals have
now been modified in potentially helpful, but still far from specific,
ways. It is therefore difficult, not only for us but also for
all the interested parties affected, to assess what the consequences
are likely to be—and we are not at all convinced that the
two Departments have succeeded in doing so, or even attempted
to do so. In what we recognise to be a difficult area of policy-making,
vigorous efforts need to be made to ensure a "joined-up"
approach.
106 Q 66 Back
107
Q 56 Back
108
AIA 34, published on the Committee's website, available at www.parliament.uk Back
109
Q 17 Back
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