You do? Well, I’ve got good news for you: you’re rich! And it’s official. Even if you can’t remember where you parked the Rolls, or docked the yacht.

Yep, that’s right. If your household has more than £3,000 of ‘disposable capital’ – that is, money held in any kind of savings account, an ISA or other kind of capital financial product, any stocks or shares, or any redundancy capital payment – then according to the Ministry of Justice you are ‘wealthy’ and therefore able to afford court and tribunal fees, without any fee remission.

In a consultation on wide-ranging reform of the current HMCTS court fee remission system which closed this week – just four weeks after being launched on 18 April – the Ministry states that it has ‘sought to develop a test of disposable capital which is sufficiently detailed [to] prevent fee remissions being paid to wealthy individuals’. And, just to make sure that doesn’t happen, fee remission applicants who pass the disposable capital test will also be subject to an income test, with anyone earning more than the National Minimum Wage having to pay at least part of the court or tribunal fee.

And, let’s not forget, some of those fees – and especially those for employment tribunal (ET) claimants, coming into force on 29 July – are substantial. The fees to issue and pursue a claim for unfair dismissal, for example, will total £1,200 (an issue fee of £250, and a hearing fee of £950). Will summarily dismissed workers who have acted sensibly to protect their family from sudden financial shocks by building up moderate savings of just £3,000 or more want to risk £1,200 of those savings on an ET claim for unfair dismissal, when there is no guarantee that the employer will repay the fees even if the claim is ‘successful’? I don’t think many will.

The Ministry says that the proposed fee remission system is part of the Coalition Government’s strategy ‘to protect access to justice’. Call me mean, but I think that’s a bit rich.

Still, at least Grayling is consistent in not passing up an opportunity to really annoy the legal profession regardless of who else might get caught up in the crossfire. In continuing the destructive slash and burn of legal aid he has shown a callous contempt for both the rule of law and those in need of legal advice and representation. In discounting concerns about the will-writing market he is showing how his deregulatory zeal cares little for consumer protection.

Grayling is not the first government minister to have a problem with evidence. Even this week the education secretary Michael Gove has been lambasted on Twitter for the ‘evidence’ on which he based his comments about the history curriculum, but I suppose at least he recognised the need to have evidence. The Justice secretary seems unconcerned about its importance.

I write as a convert to the regulation of will writing. Once upon a time I was somewhat sceptical about the loud hollering for regulation, which came mainly from the legal profession and its offshoot, the professional will writers. Lawyers calling for more regulation could surely only mean one thing: protectionism, barriers to entry and higher prices for consumers.

More to the point, there were as many problems with wills written by (regulated) solicitors as there were with those written by (unregulated) will writers.

I was quite sure the main problem was that not enough people were even writing a will. About six out of ten British adults don’t have a will and, even more worrying, those without children are more likely to have a will than those with children at home. The main reason is almost certainly because people haven’t got around to it, but why make this even less likely?

Research earlier this year for the Legal Services Consumer Panel showed consumers believe there is sufficient protection for them when they buy legal services, even though they don’t know what it is, and are content to pay extra for this peace of mind. This is hardly surprising. For most people, legal services are never going to be frequent purchases and will nearly always be accompanied by a stressful life event.

Despite this, Grayling blithely suggests that there should be ‘greater efforts made to educate consumers on the different types of provider and their respective protections and options for redress’. No suggestions as to how this might be done, and never mind that in the meantime decisions will be uninformed, with little shopping around, especially when it comes to less-educated consumers.

Responding to Grayling’s decision, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said: ‘This decision is extremely disappointing news for consumers and makes no sense given the sheer weight of evidence of consumer detriment and the wide consensus backing regulation. Anti-regulation dogma has triumphed over what is in the best interests of consumers.’

I think the Panel was quite restrained, given that it is hard to see this as anything other than another dig at the legal profession. As Neil Rose pointed out on his Legal Futures blog, the government thinks nothing of dealing with the fewer than 10% of fraudulent whiplash claims by giving all the cards to the insurers and risking that a far greater number of genuine claimants will lose out. This thoroughly disproportionate response is diametrically opposed to the one it has now taken on will writing.

It should come as no surprise to find this government, in particular the ‘Justice’ department, valuing doctrinal zeal over everything else, even common sense. The key issue with will writing, even if you empower and educate consumers to make informed choices, is that mistakes normally don’t come to light until it’s too late and the original client has died. But maybe that’s the point – fewer wills, more people dying intestate, more estates surrendered to the Crown. Cunning eh?

Things aren’t quite as bad as the Blair years but Ministers in the Government change so rapidly on the basis of cock-op, patronage and personal ambition that only the most dedicated observers are able to keep up. The best example is transport where after eight Secretaries of State in seven years it is little wonder our roads and railways are in chaos and we can’t make a decision on a third runway at Heathrow.

Prisons and Justice have fared little better. Long-term appointments based on skills and competences with external scrutiny are just a dream. Whatever we may think of the American political system the likes of Condoleza Rice, Hilary Clinton and latterly John Kerry were nominated by presidents but only appointed after scrutiny by a Congressional committee with a four-year appointment taken for granted.

The consequences in the UK are policy-based evidence and decisions aimed at personal self-aggrandizement rather than the betterment of society.

Grayling has imported the principles of his failed Work Programme from his brief period in DWP into the criminal justice system. Billions of pounds will go to private sector organisations as civil servants fail to set appropriate metrics for payment and, as former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnel has opined, struggle in this new world without skills in procurement and contract management.

Charities will not be able to pay the ‘live now, pay later’ game. A handful may risk precarious sub-contracts but most will continue as they are now, fighting for survival.

No-one disputes the principals of what Grayling purports to want to do. Some short-termers do need support. Some, such as Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce do not. Needs and risk assessment should be the key influence on policy and expenditure. Mentors can add value but they need very careful selection, training, support and supervision. None of this is free. Supervision of prisoners is a highly skilled task and not for someone on a zero-based contract paid minimum wage, as many private sector employees are required to be. Providing security guards for the Olympics is not the same as managing difficult and damaged people leading chaotic and disorganised lives.

One thing lost in the media furore around the release on electronic tag of Huhne and Pryce is that the majority of those eligible for such release fail to get approval because they have nowhere to go and no-one to support them. They stay in prison, not because they are a danger to society but because they are socially excluded and have been made more so by a short and highly disruptive period in custody.

Hidden in the recent announcements was reference to the provision of more resettlement prisons and a reorganisation of the prison estate. Given that we release 60-80,000 prisoners a year and that as a result many prisoners are close to release, it has always made sense to have a significant part of the estate focused on getting prisoners out rather than keeping in expensive custody those with no desire to escape.

There are currently only two prisons designated as ‘resettlement prisons’, Blantyre House and Kirklevington. Talk has also returned about community prisons and keeping people close to home or at least near home in the run-up to release. There is nothing new in all this apart from the actual implementation of such a policy. The Corston Report over five years ago made precisely such recommendations for women. It was universally applauded but kicked firmly into the long grass. A review of the women’s prison estate is currently underway with an opportunity for innovation and change along Corston lines. It will be a great pity if it simply follows the Government mantra of economies of scale, closing small facilities favoured by Corston and setting up female facilities in men’s Titan Jails.

Doing things better and more efficiently in the criminal justice system will cost less in the long-term. Locking people up is expensive and easy. Getting and keeping them out is more difficult but cheaper. The solutions lie in following the evidence, not in political and ideological dogma.

It’s hardly earth-shattering stuff, but is something of a miracle given the government’s determination to whittle away rights in other areas and make it almost impossible to enforce the ones we have left. Perhaps even more astonishing when the minister with the consumer brief, Jo Swinson, is also the equalities minister. Although, on second thoughts, this rather explains why equalities issues are being totally neglected by the government.

It can, of course, only be a good thing to strengthen and streamline consumer protection legislation. The draft bill has not yet been published, but will bring together consumer rights, currently split between eight pieces of legislation, and the over 60 pieces of legislation setting out trading standards’ powers to tackle breaches of consumer law. It will also update consumer laws to ensure digital goods and services are covered.

Ministers reckon it will save the economy around £4 billion over 10 years by providing better consumer protection, stronger enforcement powers and a greater understanding of consumer rights. In one respect, they are almost certainly right. Research published last year suggested consumers spent about 59 million hours trying to put right problems with goods and services. That’s a lot of hours not spending more money or making more widgets.

Bad consumer law can’t be good for economic growth and making it simpler will go some way to helping people understand their rights. But clarifying the law isn’t enough and on the whole we are not very good at educating people about their rights. In BBC 5 Live’s consumer programme last week a representative from the Trading Standards Institute highlighted recent research showing only 20% of staff in well-known high street stores understood basic consumer law. And these are the people who should know!

Equally, slapping signs all over the place informing consumers ‘this does not affect your statutory rights’ is as good as meaningless when most of us don’t have a clue what those rights are. It doesn’t matter if you bought something in a sale, it should still be fit for purpose or you should get your money back; and if you are aware the coat you’re buying has a button missing, this doesn’t mean you can’t bring it back if you get it home and find the lining is ripped. Rights without information are next to useless.

Somehow, with controversy swirling around much of the Queen’s speech, the government does seem to have done a rare thing, which is to unite consumer rights organisations, retailers and those responsible for enforcement in welcoming a government bill. I can only hope ministers don’t squander it by leaving the bill languishing on the sidelines while they attempt to dragoon doctors into becoming immigration officials.

Today I’m going to focus on the need to ‘restore access to the employment tribunal system’ by replacing the Coalition Government’s fees regime, now set to come into force on 29 July.

Whilst the introduction of fees for employment tribunal (ET) claims is deeply regrettable, it is unrealistic to expect any Labour government elected in 2015 to simply abolish the fees regime.

It is therefore necessary to devise an alternative regime: one capable of generating the same total fee income of some £10 million per year, but without creating a significant barrier to justice.

I have previously outlined just such an alternative ET fees regime, based on (a) an ‘at fault’ fee for losing respondent employers, who by definition have caused the ET system to be used, and are the reason the ET system exists; and (b) a nominal, flat-rate issue fee for claimants. Under this model, my proposed flat-rate issue fee would be paid by all claimants, including each claimant in a multiple claim case.

Such multiple claim cases can involve hundreds or even thousands of workers, but the ET system may need to determine only one ‘lead’ case. And, as the Ministry of Justice has noted, ‘every person within a multiple claim ultimately gains the same benefit as an individual bringing a single claim. If the lead case succeeds, then all claimants covered by that lead case succeed’. So, charging a fee to each claimant in a multiple claim case would be equitable. It would also be (relatively) simple to administer, and would not be complicated by the merging and splitting of cases by tribunals for the purposes of hearing.

However, under lobbying by the TUC and trade unions, who bring many of the 5-6,000 multiple claim cases each year, ministers have ignored their own logic and settled on a sliding scale of fees for multiple claim cases, under which the maximum fee payable will be just six times the fee for single claims.

So, in an ‘equal pay’ multiple claim case brought by a trade union on behalf of 2,000 workers, each worker would pay just £3.60 in fees, whilst a single, unrepresented worker bringing a claim for unfair dismissal would pay £1,200. That is self-evidently unfair.

However, as multiple claim cases ‘provide operational efficiencies’, it would be fair to set a lower flat-rate issue fee for claimants in multiple claim cases. So, I suggest a £60 flat-rate issue fee for single claimants, and a £40 fee for claimants in a multiple claim case.

Using the ‘base case’ figures for ‘steady state’ claims and disposals set out in paragraphs 3.2 – 3.15 of the impact assessment that accompanied the Ministry of Justice’s original consultation paper, that would raise £4.7 million from the 98,550 claimants each year (37,800 single claimants, and 60,750 claimants within 2,250 multiple claim cases). And a flat-rate ‘at fault’ fee of £600 would raise £5.1 million from the 8,500 employers who lose at a hearing (i.e. having failed to settle the claim prior to the hearing), or by a default judgment.

Whilst the TUC and (some) trade unions remain stubbornly opposed to the idea of a flat-rate fee for each claimant in a multiple claim cases, their position is not an easy one to understand. Because the maths shows that most union members bringing a multiple claim case would be substantially better off under my alternative fees regime than they will be under the regime set to come into force on 29 July.

For example, in an ‘equal pay’ multiple claim case brought by a trade union on behalf of ten workers, each claimant will pay £360 under the Coalition’s fees regime, but would pay only £40 under my alternative fees regime. Worse still, where there are only four claimants in the union’s multiple claim case – the median number of claimants in multiple claim cases – each will pay £600 from 29 July. (The vast majority of multiple claim cases (85%) involve fewer than ten claimants).

Only in the very small number of very large multiple claim cases will union members be better off under the Coalition’s fees regime than they would be under my alternative fees regime. And, even then, the difference is relatively insignificant. In an ‘equal pay’ multiple claim case brought by a union on behalf of 250 workers, for example, each worker will pay £28.80 from 29 July, but would pay only £11.20 more under my alternative fees regime.

To my mind – and I write as both a union and a Labour Party member – that is a very small price for the union movement to pay to ensure access to justice for the vast majority of low paid workers who can only dream of the benefits and protection offered by trade union membership.

7.

No, not seven days in the week. Seven times in a day. Seven times a policeman has stopped you in a 24 hour period.

Ask Andre Campbell.

Talk to countless other young people who are stopped and searched.

Now let’s just do the Maths: seven times in one day, seven days in one week, that works out as 49 times a week. There are four weeks in a month, so 49 x 4= 196, so potentially you could be stopped 196 times a month – if we wanted to go even further- in a year that would be 196 x 12 which gives us 2, 352 times.

But who’s counting?

Well, there’s currently a stop and search app available on Android and Blackberry smartphones (see HERE). The app enables users to log their experiences, allowing for data to be fed back and used to protect the rights of young people.

‘Stop and search’ was a key focus at the recent JusticeGap Rights and responsibilities discussion at London City Hall last Monday – see HERE for full report. The event highlighted the lack of representation of people from ethnic minority backgrounds in the legal system, the on-going frustrations of stop and search and the use of joint enterprise to convict young people.

Andre, a youth ambassador for the legal charity Just for Kids Law, spoke of how he had been searched seven times in one day. He had felt ‘violated’ with ‘no say’ .The bitter irony being that when he was 14, he had wanted to be a police officer. For him as a child, they were the ‘heroes’.

The police prerogative to stop and search at random when they want, where they want and if they want even if they have no reason to suspect an individual, apart from a cultural bias against their wardrobe, is still a fiercely contentious issue – for a guide to police powers of stop and search and the situations in which they can be exercised see HERE. If a police officer deems it fit to search you in certain situations, you will be stopped and searched. Even if you’re a young teenager still trying to make sense of life and your place in it, looking for identity and acceptance by what you wear and how you act.

You will be stopped.

You will be searched.

This rite of passage marks the beginning of numerous run-ins with the police, regardless of criminal activity.

It’s hardly surprising if resentment forms in the minds of young people towards the police. If young individuals don’t co-operate with the police, they place themselves in further danger. But if stop and search is accepted as the norm it is almost akin to saying that you can’t be a law abiding citizen, young, and from an ethnic minority.

To put it another way, if you’re young, wearing baggy pants, and if you are wearing the most convenient piece of clothing in most young people’s wardrobe – a hoodie – you have the right to be searched.

As a young person from an ethnic minority background, would you be filling out your application to become a police officer? Perhaps you might, if you thought you could reach a position where you could genuinely make a difference, but if your confidence in the legal system has already been eroded, the chances would be pretty slim.

Britain’s entrenched class system was clearly visible in the recent attempt to break down the traditional three classes into seven social classes.

Where will the next generation of solicitors, barristers and judges come from?

Where will British ‘Obamas’ be found?

It’s not enough for us to keep citing figures from abroad who have achieved and reached pinnacles in their career. We heard at last week’s debate only one in 10 barristers comes from an ethnic minority background. We heard there was only one woman in the Supreme Court (Lady Brenda Hale).

Where are the ‘home grown’ legal professionals in the UK from ethnic minority backgrounds? Where are the solicitors, barristers and judges from ethnic minorities telling young people that they are individuals of worth, who play an important role in today’s and tomorrow’s society ?

Sandie Okoro is one of them, an ambassador for the Law Society’s diversity access scheme. Last week she spoke about the ‘cost of qualifying’ together with other ‘obstacles’ that needed to be ‘overcome’.

If young people see the law as being primarily set against them, their views of the legal system will be negative. Young people need positive views of the legal system. A system that is fair, just and accessible. A legal system, they can identify with and be a part of.

This government and its predecessors have increasingly failed in both these respects. They speak gobbledygook about human rights and the two most central figures – the Justice Minister and the Home Secretary – have recently displayed an appalling lack of understanding in their wild hostility to the European Court of Human Rights. The cuts on all fronts not only withdraw benefits but also emasculate the most vulnerable.

Whole areas are now without any legal aid or only a skeleton resource.

None of this is primarily about lawyers, although they are affected, it is about a basic provision – Justice – the very substance of what is left of our democracy. No fundamental rights are worth the paper they are written upon unless they can be enforced especially against overweening and corrupt authorities.

All this is known and has been foreshadowed over the last decade. The proclaimed agenda is the privatisation and fragmentation of all public services. The thinly veiled rationalisation now is the crippling debt brought about by a freewheeling private finance sector. There are alternatives which George Osborne vehemently opposes such as a financial transaction tax.

Now is the time to alert and collectivise the public conscience to take a stand. It cannot be achieved by pockets of protest and opposition within the legal profession alone. Negotiating for the crumbs that might fall from the table is also not an option. There has been, with small exceptions, an intransigence and almost dismissive contempt by government towards the plight of the citizen.

The writing is on the wall for all to see and has to be erased by the determination and singular purpose of civic society. There are presently many networks available to facilitate this – AVAAZ and 38 DEGREES are two fine examples which serve constituencies of millions. They have already brought about seismic shifts in opinion and policy.

The Coalition has a limited shelf life and it’s misplaced objectives can be removed by concerted effort.

]]> http://thejusticegap.com/2013/05/time-to-take-a-stand/feed/ 4 http://thejusticegap.com/2013/05/disclosure-of-criminal-records/ http://thejusticegap.com/2013/05/disclosure-of-criminal-records/#comments Wed, 08 May 2013 06:27:28 +0000 Piers von Berg http://thejusticegap.com/?p=5116 more...]]> Last month there were two important and successful judicial review challenges to the systems used by police authorities to disclose and retain personal data and information. In response to the first case the Government has proposed reforms to the system for disclosing criminal records. However, these reforms do not go far enough to protect individuals’ rights to privacy and family life.

For the lay person what is at stake is control over private information – principally the way in which that is controlled, accessed and distributed by the police. For example, what information should the police provide to a prospective employer where an individual received a caution or was arrested but never charged? Or should records of arrest, harassment warnings or participation in political protest be kept on record indefinitely? Clearly, one is linked to the other, for if police databases can retain a multitude of information about a person that widens the scope of information the police can give to a third party.

In T v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police [2013] EWCA Civ 25, the scheme for recording spent cautions in Enhanced Criminal Record Checks – criminal record checks now fall under Disclosure and Barring Service) was found incompatible with Article 8. T received warnings when he was 11 years old for stealing bicycles. He thought these were spent and so did not disclose them when enrolling on a sports studies course (the course involved teaching and contact with children). An ECRC revealed them. His solicitors had to intervene with the university to help him stay on the course – see HERE on the JusticeGap.

The Government argued that it was right that all matters of relevance should be disclosed even if they included spent matters. ‘Spent’ matters are either cautions, warnings, reprimands, non-custodial sentences or sentences of imprisonment under 30 months.

The Court disagreed and found it was disproportionate to disclose all spent matters regardless of their relevance to a prospective employer. Relevant factors could be offender’s age at the time, manner of disposal, time elapsed, any re-offending and nature of the work applied for. However, the system is not geared to discriminate in this way.

Killer blow
In response the Government has proposed a system whereby convictions resulting in a non-custodial sentence will be filtered from record checks after 11 years for adults and five and a half years for young offenders. Cautions will be filtered from record checks after six years for adults and two years for young offenders.

These changes do not go far enough. For example, the following would still show up in an application today for employment with children and vulnerable adults – an adult who received a caution for shoplifting in 2008 or a young offender who received a warning for criminal damage in 2011.

It cannot be reasonably said that regardless of the employment sought such information is necessary and proportionate to the protection of children and vulnerable person. These may represent a ‘killer blow’ to a job application as Lord Neuberger said in R(L) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2009] UKSC 3.

When a request for a criminal record check is received, police naturally check their databases for information regarding the applicant. The Government has conceded that without a criminal conviction those databases cannot retain DNA and fingerprint records indefinitely. But another recent decision of the Court of Appeal highlighted that retention of simple data may also breach Article 8.

The Court of Appeal found two instances of retention of personal data contrary to Article 8 in Catt and T v ACPO [2013] EWCA Civ 192. Catt said the police should destroy all reference to him in a database on extremist protest groups. Despite attending such events, he had never been convicted for any offences connected to them. T sought the removal of a harassment warning letter sent to her where she denied any such conduct.

The court said article 8 is likely to be engaged if there is a reasonable expectation of privacy and if there is processing and storage of the information on a searchable database. In the case of Catt, the court agreed that it was a legitimate aim to collect information on extremist groups to understand their activities and risk to the general public. But in Catt’s case it could not understand how his personal details assisted in any way in that aim. For T, the letter on its own was insufficient to engage article 8, but combined with the retention of a CRIS report and reasons for the warning, it did. If there were no further incidents, the court said that ‘retention of information of this kind for more than a matter of months needs to be justified by evidence’.

Whether police authorities are able or willing to discriminate in the information they retain post-Catt, is unknown. But clearly, if the new system proposed for criminal record checks discriminates only on the age of the data disclosed, then individuals are at risk of indiscriminate disclosure of information that should not be retained in the first place.

]]> http://thejusticegap.com/2013/05/disclosure-of-criminal-records/feed/ 0 http://thejusticegap.com/2013/04/safe-as-houses/ http://thejusticegap.com/2013/04/safe-as-houses/#comments Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:12:15 +0000 Louise Restell http://thejusticegap.com/?p=5078 more...]]> As if moving home weren’t stressful enough anyway: finding a house, having your offer accepted, selling your house, getting your mortgage approved, packing up your life, hoping everyone else in the chain is still good to go. Now you have to worry if your vendor’s solicitor is going to run off with all your money.

I was flabbergasted by a piece on Money Box last weekend highlighting the fake solicitors who made off with £735k from one unfortunate and unsuspecting consumer who thought he was buying a house that wasn’t even for sale – listen HERE. Nick Christofi didn’t suspect a thing until, in the thick of renovations, a letter came from the bailiffs addressed to the previous occupants who were, it turned out, being repossessed.

You’d think his solicitors would have checked this sort of thing, but according to Money Box their due diligence consisted mainly of checking the Law Society’s Find a Solicitor website (HERE). You’d be forgiven for thinking that such ‘due diligence’ offers little in the way of protection for solicitors’ clients, which is probably why Mr Christofi managed to recover a good portion of the sum from his own solicitor.

Future victims may not be so lucky. More recently, the, dare I say, hapless solicitors caught out by a similar sting are arguing in the Court of Appeal that it is reasonable to expect a firm on lists held by the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to be bona fide. If they succeed any consumer caught in the crossfire may have no access to redress.

But the real sucker punch in the programme came from the SRA Director of Intelligence and Investigation Steve Wilmott. Such an important-sounding title did not prevent him from coming across as, well, powerless to prevent such crimes happening again. He said consumers couldn’t rely on the lists 100% and that it wasn’t necessarily the SRA’s job to weed out fraudsters.

So what, exactly, is the point of the lists? The SRA itself has even issued a warning stating ‘the nature of identity theft is that fraudsters may have obtained some form of registration by fraudulent misstatement to the SRA and therefore an entry on Find a Solicitor should not be taken as verification that the firm is genuine’. Brilliant.

Come to that, what is the point of even using a lawyer if they can’t protect you during what is probably the largest, most important and definitely the most stressful purchase you can ever make?

Mr Christofi says his lawyer failed to spot a host of signs that at the very least suggested all was not as it seemed: differing email and postal addresses, a website that never worked and a law firm based in Rotherham but with a client account in North London.

It will be of little comfort to anyone caught out by this scam that it doesn’t happen a lot because when it does it can, obviously, be devastating. It is shameful that the SRA, whose very purpose is to protect consumers, is dragging its feet over accepting any liability for fraudulent firms appearing on its lists. There also appears to be no excuse for not amending the SRA rules to ensure bank account numbers are checked to ensure firms are legitimate.

Which means if you’re moving in the meantime you’d be well advised to follow the suggestion of Chris Harris of Lawyer Checker and meet the seller of your dream home personally. At least that way you’ll know you are buying something that is actually for sale.

My own economy drive has meant I’ve had to cut my cleaner’s hours to the point where she barely has time to get the duster out. I could save more money by selling the vacuum cleaner and just using a dustpan and brush, but this would be counter productive because I’d have to spend more time cleaning and less time working.

The government, I’m afraid, seem to have put far less thought into their plans to cut legal aid than I have into my cleaning arrangements. If I had been hoping for my fears to be allayed by the minister responsible for this blasé slash and burn exercise, I would have been disappointed.

At a gathering of legal aid lawyers, policy specialists and me, Lord McNally reiterated the government’s justification for pretty much everything these days, that they inherited an economic mess from the last Labour government and they had no choice but to cut costs (see HERE). What is remarkable, however, is that these particular cuts bear no relation to policy in other areas and are more than likely to end up costing more money than they save.

Take for example the decision to remove the right of criminal defendants to choose their solicitor from a list of those providing legal aid (covered HERE). This doesn’t just fly into the face of the government mantra about competition and choice (see health and education where choice is often forced on unwilling consumers), it splats a custard pie squarely in its forehead.

Less surprising is the reluctance to admit what is really going on. If what we’re going to end up with, as Professor Roger Smith argues, is a public defender system, let’s have an open debate about the pros and cons and learn from the experience of other countries. Instead I was left wondering just what, exactly, policy makers have been doing all this time when one of them openly admitted he learned a lot from Smith’s ‘international lessons’.

The government has also spectacularly failed to ensure its plans are workable. As a general rule of thumb, if your policy is too complicated to explain in one sentence then you’re heading for trouble. The complicated tangle of who qualifies for legal aid and who does not is likely to confuse policy makers and practitioners alike, never mind the rest of us.

What is infuriating is not, as Smith put it, the wickedness of the cuts but the sloppiness. There is no coherence, no contingency plan if new arrangements don’t work, no attempt to make sure alternatives are in place before services are removed, no real risk analysis into the knock-on effects for other services (eg health, benefits, housing, crime) and no effort to explain the government’s future vision for legal aid.

The last point is probably a bit unfair: the vision is perfectly clear if pretty basic, it is to spend as little money as possible. Lord McNally is always keen to point out that the legal aid system had grown to ‘become something it was never intended to be’. Maybe so, but wouldn’t it make more sense to think about what we do want it to be, or at least listen to those who are thinking about it, like the Low Commission and the New Economics Foundation?

The problems of people who have until now had to use legal aid (and let’s be clear, nobody wants to use legal aid) don’t go away just because the government refuses to provide legal support. This is the most pernicious aspect of all of it, that the government is effectively relinquishing all responsibility for people who need legal advice and can’t afford it. Which makes me rather wonder what it is for.

Mind you, the government isn’t the only institution I’m bemused about. Even with all this going on, the criminal Bar seems to be getting its knickers in a twist about quality assurance, of all things. Fortunately at yesterday’s event the focus was predominantly on how to mitigate the worst effects of the cuts, but the day before there was much plugging on Twitter for an article in the Telegraph that really put my back up.

If lawyers were wondering why the cuts are getting such scant attention from the mainstream media this piece quite clearly shows you why. Now I’m not suggesting all lawyers should happily embrace QASA or stop trying to improve it, but lavishing such care and attention objecting to something that, quite frankly, looks like a jolly good idea to the rest of us not only makes you look a bit silly, it weakens your ability to fight against far more damaging proposals. As a defence solicitor put it: ‘It’s hard to argue that government have no interest in quality while at the same time saying: “we don’t want quality control”.’

It would seem the government does not have a monopoly on sloppiness or bad planning, leaving us with a dustpan and brush of a legal aid system that will surely cost us a fortune, in more ways than one.