3. Maintaining access to high quality
services
12. Since April 2000, providers of legal and advice
services have been able to apply to the Commission for a Quality
Mark, and potential suppliers of civil legal aid must obtain a
Specialist Help Quality Mark. To attain a Specialist Help Quality
Mark, the Commission requires suppliers to meet standards covering
seven key aspects: access to services; seamless service; running
the organisation; people management; running the services; meeting
the clients' needs; and commitment to quality.[12]
13. The Department considered that contracting had
improved the quality of civil legal aid services. The Department
had commissioned a survey of people's need for legal advice and
advice on disputes, which had suggested that 84% of the people
contacted were satisfied with the quality of service received,
and 81% would recommend the same advisor to someone else.[13]
14. The Quality Mark sets minimum standards but no
quality measures are available to identify the best suppliers,
or to determine whether work undertaken added value for clients.
The Commission acknowledged that suppliers' experience and ability
will affect performance. In some areas of the law success could
be measured relatively easily, for example contractual claims
or an application for judicial review were either won or lost.
But in some cases, for example in family disputes which cover
140,000 of the 160,000 legal aid certificates issued each year,
the notion of winning or losing was inappropriate. Whilst data
on the outcome of cases could be meaningful in assessing quality,
suppliers should not be discouraged by such a measure from taking
on marginal cases where that was in the public interest, for example
in areas such as clinical negligence. The Commission suggested
improvements in quality might be achieved if a higher level of
individual accreditation under the Service were to be encouraged,
which would recognise specialist expertise, and might attract
a higher level of remuneration.[14]
15. The Commission estimated that the introduction
of the Community Legal Service in April 2000 reduced the number
of solicitors providing legal help and advice from 11,000 to under
5,000. For some applicants, particularly smaller firms, the investment
required to attain a quality mark, for example in supervision
and training, would not be matched by the potential pay-back from
publicly-funded business. Since April 2000 the number of solicitor
firms providing legal help and advice had declined further from
4,733 at the launch of the programme to 4,427 in July 2002 (Figure
2).[15]
16. The Commission did not believe that access to
services had deteriorated, as they considered that solicitors
remaining in the scheme were more specialised at the work. On
whether people were having to travel further for advice, the Commission
suggested that, for example, people outside urban areas had traditionally
travelled into local towns to obtain advice. A network of Community
Legal Services Partnerships had been established to assess the
need for legal services in local areas against supply. These partnerships
comprised representatives from the Legal Services Commission,
local authorities and other funders, legal service suppliers and
users. The Commission's regional offices were working to meet
the needs identified.[16]
17. The availability of legal help and advice varied
depending on the area of law. A lack of experience and expertise
existed in some important sectors of law. In family law, for example,
16.8% of practitioners had left the legal aid scheme since contracts
were introduced. Solicitors had suggested to the National Audit
Office that the remuneration levels were a factor in firms leaving.
Solicitors advising on debt, housing and welfare benefits had
also left the scheme, often because they had been unable to meet
quality standards. Not-for-profit agencies had taken on some of
this work. The Commission noted that suppliers were also required
in mental and community care, and accepted that more effort was
needed to attract suppliers into specialist areas. Funding had
been given to training and development programmes to encourage
people to work as solicitors on publicly-funded work, and the
Commission intended to consult on training nonsolicitors
to work in the advice sector.[17]
18. The Commission had encouraged greater involvement
from the not-for-profit sector, and the number of such suppliers
had risen from 350 in April 2000 to 402 by July 2002. The Commission
had established six new law centres in the previous two and a
half years. Research undertaken for the Commission had suggested
that the not-for-profit sector generally obtained better results
for clients but took longer to bring cases to a conclusion. Most
not-for-profit bodies were paid by the Commission to provide an
agreed number of hours of advice, rather than to handle a specified
number of cases. Whilst the role of the not-for-profit sector
had expanded, the Commission did not envisage any further significant
increase in the sector's share of the work.[18]
19. The Commission had established a Partnership
Innovation Budget to encourage providers of advice to be imaginative
in reaching people who might not access legal services in the
traditional way. Research had suggested that people in temporary
accommodation, people with disabilities, and younger people tended
to make less use of services. In areas of law such as housing,
employment, debt and welfare benefits, advice could now be sought
by telephone. The Commission confirmed that telephone advice was
not intended as a substitute for private practice or advice agencies.[19]
20. On advice to those seeking asylum in this country,
the Commission acknowledged that it was only just coping with
the challenges posed by the increasing number of asylum applicants,
and of people going through the appeal process, and the dispersal
of asylum applicants from the South East into areas where there
had been little previous asylum work and therefore no supply.
Some of the best solicitors handled asylum issues but the Commission
was also concerned about the number of poorer performing firms
identified by the cost assessment audits and the system of peer
review recently introduced in the London region.[20]
21. Members of Parliament are aware of people who
have received poor service and advice on legal matters, and remain
concerned about the action taken when lawyers do not meet professional
standards. They have been approached by lawyers to take action
on asylum cases, even though the lawyer is being funded through
legal aid to provide advice to the applicant. The Commission asked
to be informed of any cases where a provider of legal help had
performed badly or not fulfilled contractual obligations. Where,
for example, it had evidence of overcharging or poor advice it
could approach the Law Society. Since 1996 the Law Society's Office
for the Supervision of Solicitors had made decisions on thirty
cases referred to them by the Commission and 10 referrals were
outstanding. No further action had been taken in 12 cases but
in the others, solicitors had been fined, reprimanded or suspended.[21]
12 C&AG's Report, para 3.3 Back
13
Q 7 Back
14
Qq 22-24, 119, 126 Back
15
Q 29; C&AG's Report, paras 3.10-3.11
Back
16
Qq 13, 16, 29, 81 Back
17
Qq 8, 32, 80, 158-159 Back
18
Qq 113, 156-157; C&AG's Report, para 3.12 and Figure 11 Back
19
Qq 9, 13, 17 Back
20
Qq 11, 35, 98 Back
21
Qq 194-202, 132, 220, 223, 227; Ev 26 Back
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