Supplementary Evidence submitted by The
Law Society
CIVIL LEGAL
AID
I am writing to follow-up and expand on the
evidence that I gave to the Committee on the 23rd March; particularly
in relation to helping more people without increasing the budget
and alternative methods of delivery.
On the 23rd I suggested that the Government
could follow the practice of local authorities, which insist on
planning gain when granting planning permission for lucrative
commercial projects. If the beneficiaries of similarly lucrative
Government contract had to contribute to projects that tackled
social exclusion, it would be reasonable to expect the beneficiaries
of Government contracts for legal services to contribute towards
meeting the unmet need and unmet demand that has been identified
by the Legal Services Commission in its recent research. For instance,
a firm awarded a large Government contract for legal services
could agree to pay the salaries of social welfare lawyers, who
could be placed in legal aid practices to do work that was uneconomical
for the firm to do but that met a local need—for instance
dealing with domestic violence injunctions. Such lawyers could
also be used to provide outreach services which could not be provided
economically under legal aid because of the limits on travel.
My second suggestion in this area relates to
Government policy on public and other statutory inquiries. The
Government could have a policy that the contracts to provide legal
services for these inquiries should be offered first of all to
firms that undertook at least 50% legal aid work. It could provide
a system whereby firms were able to collaborate in providing legal
services, as happens currently with the Legal Services Commission
in the case of multi-party actions. In those cases one firm undertakes
the generic work, and other firms undertake the individual client
work. Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence practices would
be well equipped to deal with many of the health public inquiries
that there seem to be, and criminal defence firms would certainly
have the knowledge and skill to undertake work such as that in
the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and the Hutton Inquiry.
Undertaking such high profile work would be
a boost for the firms concerned, and whether they were paid a
special legal aid rate or their own private client rate, it is
likely that the Government would save a great deal as these rates
would be significantly less than the rates charged by the City
firms which presently get these contracts. The Government would
then be able to use the balance to tackle social exclusion, for
instance, by providing people with more information about their
legal rights.
In relation to alternative methods of delivery,
I mentioned the possibility of using a network of GP surgeries
and video conferencing to allow individuals easy access to experienced
practitioners. Another possibility, in areas where there is little
or no legal aid provision, would be to set up legal aid centres.
A legal aid centre would have all the facilities of a traditional
solicitors' office, but it would be paid for by the Legal Services
Commission, and it would be managed by a franchise supervisor
whose salary would also be paid for by the Legal Services Commission.
Firms that had given up legal aid work because of the bureaucracy
could then be offered the opportunity to provide a legal aid service
at the legal aid centre, with the bureaucratic burden being borne
by the franchise supervisor. It would also be possible for existing
legal aid practices to use the legal aid centre to provide outreach
services. If there were only two interview rooms at the legal
aid centre, this would still allow 20 half-day sessions a week,
and several firms offering services in the same area of law would
be able to use the legal aid centre, as their sessions could be
set on different dates. It would, for instance, be possible to
have a number of family law firms using the legal aid centre with
no risk of opposing parties bumping into each other in the waiting
room, because each firm would attend the legal aid centre on a
different day.
Finally, there are undoubtedly huge efficiency
savings to be made, and the most obvious area in which these savings
could be made is in the use of information technology. It is absurd
that it is not possible to have all our dealings with the Legal
Services Commission online, even when we have the necessary technology.
It is also absurd that so much time, money and energy is spent
in copying, sending, chasing, tracing, recopying, resending and
rechasing papers and documents when the technology clearly exists
to allow confidential documents to be sent safely and securely
on line. Greater efficiency in these areas would free time and
money to provide more legal aid services.
I am sending this letter via the Law Society
because I gave my oral evidence as part of the Law Society's contingent.
However, the views expressed in this letter are my own.
Lucy Scott-Moncrieff
April 2004
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