Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs Written Evidence


Evidence submitted by James Murray Associates

  We understand from a recent press release that you have called for an inquiry into Legal Aid issues later this month.

  We are a Recruitment business, members of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and licensed Immigration Advisers at certain levels authorised by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC). We also have a large training centre accreditated by the British Accreditation Council (BAC) and several other bodies, to provide further and Higher Education.

  We have on two occasions attempted to gain a Franchise and a Contract to proved services under the Legal Aid Scheme but have been rejected for two reasons. The main reason being that we were authorised by OISC, as we are not licensed by the Law Society and also that there are "enough" franchises in the postcode "E17" or Waltham Forest Borough Council. The main reason given by the LSC is that they did not recognise OISC and the same applied when we first tried to buy Professional Indemnity Insurance. Incidentally when we eventually were able to buy this insurance it was at a huge premium to that charged to a Law Firm.

  We are now branching into Employment, Housing and Family law. As a Recruitment Business we come across matters that make us aware of totally unscrupulous employers, landlords and unfair Councils.

  To overcome the objections we attempted to buy a Law Firm but the Law Society stopped the transaction on the grounds that private non-solicitors could not own a Law Society registered firm.

  This rejection has forced us to turn away numerous clients who required Legal Aid. These clients were most suitable for aid and taxpayers' funds would have been well used.

  You may be aware of a trend developing in the legal business today. Many firms are now decreasing or closing their Immigration advice business because of the latest moves curbing their ability to charge freely but restricting them to charges, for example, of a maximum £400 for pre Home Office decisions.

  This action is depriving many people of access to legal aid and action must be taken to redress this situation. These firms that are now turning clients away who need help with immigration matters BUT instead are converting their contracts to Employment, Housing and Family because there is more money in those services. These firms are abandoning immigrants and should not be allowed new contracts.

  We submit this development is wrong. If a firm withdraws, changes or applies for a new franchise, say Employment, they should be denied the contract. We submit that these contracts should be awarded to businesses like us who are now denied access to this funding but are giving the services financing it from other income streams because we have to continue providing services to our clients in Recruitment and Training. The firms changing are only following the gravy bowl.

  If action is not taken now to rectify this development you will create a desert denying aid to thousands of needy people. This may well be the Government's ultimate aim but we ask if this is fair? Unless the Government moves now to legalise the status of illegal immigrants who are in the country today the number of claimants will increase five fold within the next two years. With reduced fees no one will be willing to give advice under the present legal aid terms. We believe that there are in excess of 5 million illegal immigrants in the UK.

  We would suggest that whilst it would be very unpopular in today's climate we suggest that it would be financially viable for this Government to legalise these illegal immigrants (who are now also illegal black market workers), save millions in Legal aid Fees, Court Costs, Clear Home Office backlogs, reap rich rewards for the Treasury in the form of NI, PAYE and FINES placed on unscrupulous workers that have been exploiting the immigrants in the work place.

  Whilst we realise that in the past many Law Society registered firms did rip the system off. We should not be penalised for the greed of others in the past.

  Your consideration of whether legal aid costs accounted for more than half the DCA's budget should be looked at in relation to what percentage it was 10 years ago and the number of claimants versus the number of claimants now. Our understanding is that there are probably twice as many claimants today as there was 10 years ago BUT more importantly the number of Advisers is decreasing daily. We see that from the number of applicants we have every time we advertise for a new adviser.

  Our aim is to continue to meet the needs of disadvantaged immigrants and local citizens in Immigration, Employment, Housing and Family issues. To do this successfully we require a Franchise and the contracts to claim legal aid in these four areas. We should not be disadvantaged because we are an OISC registered firm and because there are other providers in E17 as we are actually based in E4 and our research has shown that there is no franchised provider in the E4 postcode area.

Jannie de Wet

Practice Manager

23 February 2004





 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2004
Prepared 19 July 2004