Evidence submitted by Lambeth Housing
Lawyers (LAR 43)
This submission comes from Lambeth Housing Lawyers.
We are an informal network of local legal aid providers who act
primarily for tenants in this borough. We meet several times a
year and share our knowledge through an email network. We are
developing this email system to assist the public to find an available
housing lawyer to help them.
Lord Carter's review of legal aid procurement
is a substantial document and given the considerable pressures
of running a legal aid practice it is not possible to deal with
every aspect of the review in detail. However, we wish the Committee
to be aware of the following points in relation to his review
and the likely effect on legal aid providers and access to justice,
if the proposals in the review were to be implemented:
1. The Carter reforms can only work where
there is an existing vibrant and competitive legal aid sector.
This does not exist at present. On the contrary, the legal aid
sector is very fragile indeed.
2. This fragility is due to the government's
policy of fixing the legal aid pay rates for the past 10 years
(with very few and only then minor increases) and due to the LSC's
policies over the same period, which have insisted on increasing
specialisation.
3. If the Carter reforms were to be introduced
the legal aid sector will fragment:
(a) Firms will withdraw from legal aid.
(b) Experienced practitioners will switch to
non-publicly funded work, retire or change career.
(c) The present quality of legal aid work will
be sacrificed on the altar of quantity—but even then quantity
will not be achieved because of the diminishing pool of firms
and practitioners.
(d) Overall a diminished market of legal aid
suppliers will inevitably mean a reduced access to justice for
the most needy and vulnerable members of society.
4. Legal aid work is already unprofitable
and only survives by cross-subsidy from costs recovered from opponents
and from other areas of work. Carter and the LSC cannot expect
firms to compete for legal aid work at rates which are lower paid
than at present—there is no incentive for firms to do so.
5. The investment costs and the risks of
change are far too high (even with proposed government funding),
especially when you take into account that "managed competition"
due to be introduced in 2009 will result in the loss of contracts
and the ruin of many firms.
6. Educated, middle-class professional lawyers
can always find alternative work when they move away from publicly
funded services, but it will be impossible to attract them back
once they have gone. There are far too few new lawyers able or
willing to replace them.
7. Not only do housing lawyers secure housing
for the disadvantaged, but their work contributes to other Government-led
policies and initiatives, eg preventing social exclusion, reducing
child poverty and eliminating anti-social behaviour. The departure
of experienced legal aid housing lawyers (and the current failure
to attract new blood) will cause serious problems for the client
base.
8. The government and the LSC have brought
the publicly funded sector to the brink. The Carter reforms threaten
to tip it over the edge. A whole generation of legal aid practitioners
will be lost for ever, but the true victim will be access to justice
for ordinary people.
September 2006
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