Annex B
OTHER CURRENT
ISSUES OF
CONCERN TO
LAPG
(a) DCA White Paper: The Future of Legal
Services: Putting Consumers First. LAPG has submitted a detailed
response to this White Paper, in which we set out our concerns
that the White Paper proposals represent a serious threat to the
independence to the legal profession, in breach of the United
Nations Basic Principles on the role of lawyers, and that the
introduction of alternative business structures will inevitably
lead to a weakening in the regulatory structure to the detriment
of clients. A Bill is due to be published by the end of this Parliamentary
Session. We presume that the Committee will be reporting on this
White Paper and/or the Draft Bill in due course.
(b) Recoupment of payments on account. The
LSC has recently written to firms seeking repayment, in some instances
of six figure sums, in respect of payments on account. These payments
were allegedly made and not recouped on legal aid certificates
going back up to 20 years. In many cases, firms have long since
destroyed the files, after keeping them for the length of time
recommended by Law Society guidance. This matter may be better
approached as possible maladministration to be referred to the
Parliamentary Commissioner.
(c) CLACs and CLANs. The CLS Strategy proposed
the development of Community Legal and Advice Centres and Networks.
We were promised further consultation papers which would set out
in more detail how they would operate, and an Advisory Board to
oversee the development of the pilots. No such consultation has
taken place, and the proposed Advisory Board has not been set
up.
(d) Use of success rates in immigration
matters. A number of firms with immigration contracts have received
letters from the LSC telling them that they have succeeded in
less than 40% of their cases at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal,
and asking them what they propose to do to improve the success
rates they report in the next couple of months. The use of raw
success data in this way would be objectionable even if it was
looking at the situation over the longer term, but to use it to
make short term decisions about a firm's contract on a month to
month basis is intolerable. There is a real risk that firms will
be driven to breach their professional duties to their clients
by fear of having their contract terminated.
(e) What constitutes good value? In a Commons
Answer to a question from Peter Bone MP on 12 January 2006, the
Solicitor-General Mike O'Brien indicated that the costs of the
Treasury Solicitors Department, which worked out at £134
per hour, represented good value. Legal aid lawyers understandably
want to know, therefore, why the Government is imposing freezes
and cuts in their rates of under half of this sum, arguing that
they need to deliver better value for money.
Legal Aid Practitioners Group
February 2006
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