Legal Aid Campaign

Thank you for all of you who supported us. It seems we have won our campaign to keep Legal Aid for Child Abuse cases. Whilst the Legal Services Commission plan to amend the regulations it is clear that Legal Aid will be retained for abuse cases. Well done to all those who helped us. See an article which appeared in the Law Society's Gazette below

After the Legal Services Commission issued a proposal document we objected strongly to the proposals and submitted our own paper. You can download and read it by clicking here. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download Acrobat Reader free of charge follow this link.

Many of you sent letters of suppor to your local MP. Articles appeared in the National Press and on Radio. After reading our representations the Department of Constitutional Affairs issued its repsonse which you can read here. It is clearly designed to save money (see the table on page 8), rather than allow more access to justice. Abuse cases however are to remain. Many restrictions are still made to the availability of Legal Aid, which are unfair to other groups of people.

Experts

The LSC have issued a consultation paper about experts which talks about raising standards and restricting the choice of experts to those who pass certain quality criteria. In child abuse cases experts are so difficult to come by that ACAL are worried by the proposals and have issued a response which can be read here. It has been put together by our Exec Committee member Tracy Storey.

Solicitors’ funding victory

Civil legal aid solicitors have welcomed a government U-turn over plans to end public funding in claims against public authorities and financial proceedings in family cases.

Announcing changes to the funding code last week, legal aid minister David Lammy said the government now wanted to consult further on transferring clinical negligence cases and actions against the police to conditional fee agreements (CFAs), but a spokeswoman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs told the Gazette that it has shelved plans to make the shift for housing disrepair cases and judicial reviews.

She added that mooted amendments to the funding code for damages in education claims have also been dropped.

Mr Lammy said the government is still committed to targeting civil legal aid on the most needy, and is forging ahead with changes to eligibility limits – with income thresholds for legal representation reduced by £75 per month to £630. However, it has thrown out controversial proposals to take into account the equity in claimants’ homes and waived the eligibility limits for domestic violence victims.

Mr Lammy said it wanted more focus on using formal complaints procedures to avoid litigation against the police and medical authorities.

The government will also consult on planned changes to funding for ancillary relief proceedings in family cases, looking to see whether there is a suitable range of private funding options available.

The government’s original consultation last summer caused outrage as it vowed ‘to refuse legal aid for cases within the general funding code whenever they are suitable for a CFA, whether or not insurance is in practice available’.

Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Richard Miller backed the government’s restrained approach to changing the current scheme.

‘It has clearly listened to the concerns expressed about the possible impact of some of their proposals on vulnerable clients,’ he said.

The Law Society also welcomed the ‘change of mind’. Chief executive Janet Paraskeva said: ‘Many vulnerable people with little disposable income but some equity in their homes will still qualify for legal aid.’

But Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp, head of clinical negligence at London firm Bolt Burdon Kemp, said the vast majority of medical cases were already settled out of court.

She called for funding to be front-loaded so as to promote settlements, rather than forcing claimants to go down an expensive and labyrinthine complaints route.

‘If there is to be proper access to justice, we need extra funding at the investigation stage,’ she argued. ‘This is the same old government claptrap – it’s just that less people will be eligible.’

Reporter(s):

Paula Rohan