Evidence submitted by Christopher Andrews,
Coodes Solicitors (LAR 09)
1. My name is Christopher Andrews, I'm an
equity partner in Coodes who are now the largest Law firm, by
way of number of offices, in Cornwall. We have offices in Truro,
St Austell, Holsworthy, Launceston, Penzance, Newquay and the
office at which I'm based here in Liskeard. I have a criminal
contract with the LSC and only deal with criminal defence work.
My department is entirely legal aid based. The firm also has criminal
contracts for its St Austell and Newquay offices.
2. I'm a court and police station duty solicitor
and have been for approximately eight years. In Liskeard I have
one full time Crown Court Clerk/Police Station Representative
and a Trainee Solicitor who has just qualified as a Police Station
Representative. We are the only office in South East Cornwall
with a criminal contract, this area covering the towns of Saltash,
Liskeard, Callington and Looe. East Cornwall is now covered by
two duty solicitor schemes namely Restomel, which covers an area
from St Austell up to Newquay, and North Cornwall which covers
Bodmin, Liskeard, Launceston and Bude. Both schemes are best described
as large rural schemes. The main custody centre for Restormel
is Newqauy. The main custody centre for North Cornwall is Launceston,
although prisoners who are arrested in either Saltash or Torpoint
are likely to be taken to Charles Cross Police Station in Plymouth.
3. I'm very concerned about how the proposed
reforms will affect us as a firm. In particular I'm concerned
about the proposed standard fees for police station work. Whilst
I appreciate that these have been uplifted to include an amount
for travelling and waiting they do not take into account the travelling
distances involved in a area such as Cornwall, especially when
we have holiday traffic in the summer.
4. The proposed police station fee is going
to make most police station work uneconomical. Our proposed set
fee is at £196.00 which appears to be inclusive of VAT. We
are told that our average profit costs are £167.00, so an
uplift of £29.00 has been added to include travel and waiting.
The travel distance from my office to the three custody centres
is approx 40-45 minutes respectively depending on the time of
year. Launceston is a return trip of 42 miles, Charles Cross is
about the same (via the City centre) and Newquay is about 60 miles.
At present this travel at duty rates would be £91.65 at social
rates and £121.69 at unsocial rates inclusive of VAT. The
only way that police station work can continue to be viable under
the new proposals is with a pre-set access uplift being added
to take account of the area in which we work and the distance
involved to our local custody centres. These distances increase
during unsocial hours when travel from home is required, they
are then 56 miles for Launceston Custody and 80 miles for Newquay
Custody.
5. I also understand the standard fee is
not proposed to cover any bail-backs which are still extremely
common. If there is a bail back to the police station which requires
our second attendance for interview then more or less our entire
standard fee will have been absorbed in travel time before we
even provide any advice or representation at the police station.
6. The fixed police station fee appears
to be paid unless more than 16 hours work (not including travel)
are done when you can then claim an ex post facto rate of £80.00,
the escape rate. This with respect is quite absurd. At the moment
if I were to do an out of hours duty case of say 14 hours together
with an hour and a half travel I would receive £1,257.56.
Under the fixed fee scheme this would be £196.00, an hourly
rate of £13.00. However, if the case extends to 16 hours
I get an hourly rate of £80.00 which comes to £1,280.00.
How can this make sense? This proposed escape rate needs to be
readdressed, 16 hours is too high.
7. My CDS returns for July 2006 included
22 police station claims with an average profit cost figure of
£225.22 before travel . With travel included the average
profit cost figure is £273.27. This gives an indication of
how much travel is required in Cornwall. I now stand to lose £77.21
for every police station case I accept. This is not a cost neutral
proposal, it's a proposal which in reality is going to make us
have to consider our future. There isn't a surplus of firms in
this area, neither of the two police station schemes has more
than six contract providers; there are five on Restormel and four
on North Cornwall. Carter fails to reflect the different dynamic
of small rural firms compared to larger firms based in urban areas.
8. The proposals also have other serious
consequences, for example staff recruitment and development. The
pay scales are such that the cheapest possible staff are going
to be required for the police station, in other words there will
simply be no point in funding staff to train and qualify as duty
solicitors when all that is required for them to attend the police
station is that they are accredited representatives. It is therefore
going to prove difficult to have any sort of staff development
within the department leading to poor staff motivation and retention.
9. Out of hours work in the evenings, weekends
and bank holidays is unsociable work and at the moment staff and
agency representatives agree to work out of hours as they receive
a percentage of the legal aid hourly rate but Carter is going
to prevent this practice. Clearly the Police are going to continue
to arrest people outside of office hours and we will be expected
to attend, but Carter appears to have given no thought to this
difficulty. In Cornwall we can quite often have clients arrested
over the same period of time and taken to different custody centres
up to 42 miles apart, it is therefore often necessary to instruct
an agent, or another member of staff, to cover the second custody
centre. However, if we lose this ability then there is simply
going to be insufficient police station cover during unsocial
hours and the Police won't be able to interview as this would
in turn lead to a breach of the PACE codes of practice.
10. Carter proposes that firms will be able
to increase their profitability by increasing their efficiency
but in a small rural firms such as ourselves this is not possible.
These efficiency savings are not there to make in the first place.
Carter appears to assume that much of the delay in the CJS is
the fault of the defence. Whilst it is accepted that we must deliver
our own efficiencies many of the inefficiencies in the CJS lay
outside the influence of defence solicitors.
11. Carter has failed to give consideration
to the issue of prison visits. The travel costs in making these
visits cannot be absorbed into the standard fee system. The travel
distances involved from Cornwall are too large. Our nearest male
prison is in Exeter, approximately 60 miles away. Our nearest
female prison is Bristol, approximately 120 miles away. Our Nearest
YOI is Portland. The costs involved in visiting these prisons
is going to be disproportionately high from area to area.
12. If we are to continue to exist and serve
the local community we need more financial assistance than the
current proposals offer, at the very minimum we need a pre access
travel uplift. My nearest custody centre is 40 minutes away, the
main Magistrates' Court is 30 minutes away and the Crown Court
in Truro 40 miles away from my office. The affect of these proposals
is going to be devastating. Travel payments are to be lost and
possibly travel disbursements in addition.
13. When I started working for Coodes in
Liskeard in 1996 there were five firms providing criminal legal
aid. I am now the only one left in the town. I cannot accept that
these proposals in their current form are going to ensure justice
to the local community. These proposals are going to put small
rural firms out of business. At the moment we can just afford
to provide a local service for local people but I believe that
the Carter proposals will put us out of business. How are the
small rural towns in the area going to be serviced under Carter?
Big city providers wont be interested in coming to Cornwall as
they are not going to get paid travelling. Fixed fees for the
police station are illogical and unsuitable, they mean that I
would get paid substantially more for representing a person arrested
for shoplifting, for whom attendance at the police station takes
a hour, than for the person arrested for rape, GBH or even murder
for whom the attendance could be spread over a couple of days.
14. Whilst I accept the need for change
within the profession Carter is going to hit the small rural practices
such as my own the hardest forcing us to close. It's going to
leave huge rural areas without any legal aid solicitors and deprive
the public of having any access to justice.
September 2006
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