Good morning. Thank you for giving me this first opportunity as legal aid Minister to talk to you - I'm delighted to be here. I know a huge amount of hard work goes into organising this conference - so let me thank everyone who has been involved.
I suspect there will be a lively debate today about how legal aid should be taken forward. I know all of you share my view that legal aid is absolutely vital in order to ensure vulnerable, dispossessed and disadvantaged people get access to justice.
Our challenge for the future - as a Government, as practitioners and as a society - is how we reform it so it continues to meet that vital need but in a way which is fair to those it is intended to help, to the taxpayer, and to you the practitioners.
We published our approach in the Fairer Deal document in July. I want to pick up key themes from that document.
Introduction
As you know, I'm still reasonably new to the Department for Constitutional Affairs. But it didn't take long to realise that legal aid is a difficult, contentious area. I know feelings are running high. But it's important we have debate and dialogue.
I'll give you my guarantee: I'll be honest with you. I know there are areas where we will agree and areas where we will disagree. That's because you care, quite rightly, about the service you provide. But we need to make changes and to move forward. I think we would all agree that the status quo is not an option.
Let me set out the 'what', the 'why' and the 'how' of our legal aid reforms:
Proud legacy
But, before that I want to make clear that although these are urgent, important reforms and there will be difficult decisions to take, they are all against the background of this government's determination to maintain a very important and proud legacy. Since 1949, millions of people have benefited from advice, help, support and representation: often some of the most vulnerable, disadvantaged people in our society.
And this isn't history: I see in my constituency each and every week the way legal advice can help pick up the pieces for people when they are at the lowest ebb. One of the things I have to do is advise people to go to local advice centres to resolve problems with debt.
But this is exactly why I want to take our reforms forward. Not because I think everything is wrong - far from it. But because I want legal aid to continue to make a difference to people's lives for the next 50 years - I want it to be a better service for vulnerable people for whom legal advice can be a vital part of the jigsaw.
So it is all the more regrettable that this week we have seen a lot of irresponsible talk from some in the Bar about refusing work - both defence and prosecution have discussed this today. I am glad to say that many barristers are working normally, actual disruption has been minimal, and local CJS managers are working together to get the few proceedings which have been delayed back on track.
But, for all that, it has been real for the victims, witnesses and defendants for whom the justice process will be delayed. For me, threatening, and even more actually creating, such disruption is a totally unacceptable way for professionals who are all well paid by the standards of most ordinary people, and some right at the top of the earnings league, to try and advance their cause.
Also totally futile, when so many elements in the legal profession recognise, by the way they are throwing themselves into working with Lord Carter, that his review is the best way of sorting out the genuine issues we all accept there are about the legal aid system. In fact, behaving in ways which unfairly cast all legal professionals in a bad light makes it less, not more, likely that we can sustain the case for taking forward into the future the principles of the legal aid system about which I have already spoken. So I appeal to all who are contemplating action of this kind to stop, and to everyone in a position to influence them to join with me in doing so.
What do we want from legal aid - what's it for?
Put simply, if we didn't have legal aid we'd invent it:
These are important principles. Legal aid helps create the kind of society in which we all want to live - a fair, decent and safe society. These principles of fairness apply across the board - fair to taxpayers, fair to vulnerable people, fair to defendants and fair to you the practitioners.
That's where we want to be - but we are not yet there?
Why Reform Legal Aid?
Our country has changed dramatically. In many ways our society today is almost unrecognisable from the one in 1949 when legal aid was introduced.
Reform is long overdue - legal aid doesn't always provide a fair deal.
Above all it is not fair for vulnerable people. There has been a disproportionate growth in criminal legal aid spend up 37% in real terms since 1997 yet can we assert that it has produced a proportionate impact in the prospect of vulnerable defendants? Civil advice - advice which helps us tackle poverty and social exclusion - is losing out.
It's not fair for the taxpayer. The overall cost of legal aid has grown considerably in recent years, up from around £1.5bn in 1997 to over £2bn in 2004 without any demonstrable increase in obvious measuring of workload and output. If we are going to win the argument in the hurly burly of competition for public spending we have to show that all of that money is being spent on the right things and well spent.
And I know that sometimes it's not fair to you the practitioner. We want to ensure that legal aid rates continue to provide respectable remuneration for hard working practitioners like you and ensure that legal aid is supplied at the right price for the right people and at the right time. Piecemeal change has left a system with rough edges and anomalies which need to be tackled.
How are we going to get there?
We need to look at the system as a whole. We need to look at the procurement of legal advice and representation; the way new developments in the criminal justice system and social policy drive demand for publicly funded legal services; and making sure that vulnerable people have access to legal services for civil matters where that is really needed, re-balancing the system in favour of civil cases.
That's where we want to get to - but how will we get there?
Procurement
First, we have asked Lord Carter to review the way that publicly funded legal services, especially criminal defence services, are procured. He will present a plan by early 2006 - a plan that shows how we get a procurement system that achieves maximum value for money and control quality and fairness for the justice system.
This review is essential because everyone involved in the criminal justice system - courts, police and victims as well as defendants - will benefit from the right services at the right price at the right time.
I know that Lord Carter has found the engagement of practitioners extremely helpful and I will urge you to continue to support the review.
At the time when he started his work, we of course already had already taken the idea of Price Competitive Tendering in London some way forward. The LSC's consultation paper entitled Improving Value for Money for Publicly Funded Criminal Defence Services in London was published on 28 January 2005. The paper proposed the introduction of managed competition in London through competitive tendering for criminal legal aid work in the police station and at the magistrates' court.
The consultation paper was sent to all those solicitors' offices with a criminal or civil contract, as well as to representative bodies such as The Law Society and other interested parties.
We believe that price competitive tendering will benefit legal aid solicitors by providing:
To help London based suppliers prepare for the competitive tendering process, Business Link for London, the locally based government funded organisation that supports small businesses, has run a series of free half-day seminars in February and March.
I know that there is concern amongst some of our legal service providers about how a system of competitive tendering might work and I am aware that we must have particular regard to issues relating to small and specialist firms. The LSC is now considering the response to the consultation. It will also want to carry out some further work to follow up the points made in the consultation, which will be in progress in parallel with Lord Carter's work. I can assure you that we will not be taking any final decisions to launch a bidding process before Carter has reported. The LSC's current plan is to launch an auction process in April 2006 with implementation from October 2006.
Demand Side
Turning to the demand side, we will continue to drive forward reforms that make criminal trials more focused and effective: better judicial case Management and a more systematic approach to the way fraud offences are brought to justice.
However, when it comes to controlling spiralling demand, prevention is better than cure. I met Richard Miller and Roy Morgan from LAPG soon after I joined DCA. They made a very strong point about the impact of the policies of other Government Departments on the legal aid budget.
And you are right. The ‘upstream' policy process has not always taken into account the ‘downstream' effects on you as practitioners, and the legal aid budget as a whole. We've made good progress but, I agree, more needs to be done.
The impact of proposed legislation on the legal aid budget needs to be thoroughly considered - not as a one-off but in a systematic way, so it becomes a normal part of the way Departments do business.
I'm pleased to say that, following the meeting with LAPG, we've made progress: a legal aid impact test will now be part and parcel of the way Government develops policy.
The test will be added to the Regulatory Impact Assessment process. These assessments - RIAs for short - are well-established. They are completed for every policy change, whether European or domestic, affecting the public or private sector, charities, the voluntary sector or small businesses. RIAs are required documents when Departments are seeking cross Government agreement to a new policy.
We will need to look closely at how this works, but the addition of a legal aid impact test to the RIA is a big step forward. DCA will now be able to suggest alternatives to regulation or obtain commitments from other Departments to meet the costs of any new burden on the legal aid budget. It will put a check on policies - whether by accident or design - that squeeze the legal aid budget.
Civil and Family
I'm sure that we all agree that civil and family problems have a significant impact of society. We have estimated that for civil problems alone, this amounts to a cost of £2-4bn annually in lost output. It is therefore vitally important that we help people to resolve their problems as early as possible, particularly for those who are most vulnerable. To do this effectively, we will need to provide advice in the most relevant way for the people we are trying to help.
Let me say a few words about how this is happening just now.
The LSC is looking at ways of making expenditure on civil advice more targeted on those who most need it, particularly the socially excluded. In other words, a pattern of support fully attuned to the needs of the customer. In some cases this may mean telephone advice, in other cases face to face advice through a centre, in other cases "outreach" advice near at hand, for example in doctors' surgeries. Suppliers will have opportunities to develop within this framework.
In this area, an LSC consultation closes at the end of next week and I would urge you to respond to this, if you have not already done so. At the same time, my Department and others are looking to secure better co-ordination of the Government's support for advice. Through this, we aim to make the system clearer for both consumers and providers of advice, and more effectively deal with clusters of problems, especially for those who are most disadvantaged.
In the family area, we have in hand a review of the operation of public law cases relating to child care. This has as its aim better outcomes. It is not a cost cutting exercise. However it is being conducted against the background of rapid growth in expenditure on these cases, up by 77% in real terms over the past 5 years to over £200 million a year.
You may be aware that yesterday the Legal Services Commission announced that the Tailored Fixed Fee scheme for civil Controlled Work will be extended until April 2007. The scheme was introduced in October 2004 by the Legal Services Commission on a voluntary basis, and to all remaining suppliers, following consultation, in April 2005. It introduced a new approach to funding Controlled Work, where suppliers such as yourselves are paid fixed amounts per case. This has benefits for both you and the Commission in enabling spend and income to be managed more effectively. It has also enabled many firms to increase their profitability as they benefit from efficiency savings and gain an uplift on previous average case costs.
However the Legal Services Commission has taken account of your views and feedback since the scheme's introduction which, at this early stage, seem to indicate that it has been a success. Having listened to what you wanted from the scheme, the hope is that the move to extend it should provide you, as suppliers, with more long-term financial stability while enabling the Commission to continue a dialogue with you in which your views will be fed into proposals for future funding arrangements.
What Next?
I want you to look at these reforms - not in the parochial sense of "what will specific changes mean for me", but from a wider perspective. Think about change, about risk, and about opportunities for you as the practitioners as well as the quality service that you need to provide.
Charlie Falconer and I are totally determined to secure this country's proud tradition of access to justice for all. That's what the Fairer Deal document is all about. Let us all work together to build an approach to legal services and legal aid which will meet the needs and demands of our developing society. Quality delivered in a way which is fair to all - let that be our watchword.