Number of people helped
31. The right to access to justice raises many questions
relating to eligibility, opportunity and take-up.[25]
During the course of this inquiry, it became apparent that there
are serious problems relating to all these issues. In particular,
in respect of opportunity and take up, there have been concerns
about geographical access and the ability of solicitors to take
clients because of both the matter start system and the limits
of physical capacity. Moreover, the LSC accepts that it is helping
fewer people. Excluding immigration/asylum cases, about 585,000
people were helped in 2003/04 (658,000 were helped in 2002/03).[26]
LSC also calculates that about 128,000 people with immigration/asylum
cases were helped in 2003/04. This is fewer people than the 156,000
helped in 2002/03, but these numbers reflect changing Home Office
practice in the processing of asylum applications.[27]
32. The Legal Aid Practitioner Group commented that:
"Apart from in the immigration field, there
is no evidence of any reduction in demand. We attribute the drop
partly to restrictions on matter starts under the contract, and
in part to the drop in the number of solicitors offering legal
aid services, and a reduction in the amount of legal aid carried
out by those remaining within the scheme."[28]
33. The Legal Aid Practitioner Group also provided
evidence that in the current year 74% of firms reported that they
had turned clients away. Of those, 36% said they had run out of
matter starts (even though the survey on which the evidence was
based was carried out less than three quarters of the way through
the year), and 45% said they had run out of physical capacity
to take on clients.[29]
34. The LSC provided a number of reasons for the
fact that it is helping fewer people. It said:
- Early in the year, the Commission
may have controlled too tightly the number of new cases that some
solicitors' firms were authorised to start. They sought to address
this by authorising a further 20,000 nationally in November 2003.
- Some solicitors' firms started fewer cases than
were authorised by their contracts—perhaps because they
wanted to concentrate their efforts on the most profitable or
meritorious cases ("cherry picking")
- New initiatives introduced as part of the CLS—telephone
services and the internet, for example—may have reduced
the need for face-to-face services in some areas.
- Economic circumstances may have meant that fewer
people had problems about which they sought advice.[30]
35. Despite the factors raised by the Legal Services
Commission, we are satisfied that there is still ample evidence
of unmet demand. When there is no evidence of reduced demand the
number of people helped is a key indication of how successful
the system is. It is unacceptable that the system is helping fewer
people.
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