We haven’t
talked about legal aid for a while. That’s no great surprise as there is very
little left. I have previously referred to Access to Justice as a wasteland.
There has
been one glimmer of hope recently. But it remains doubtful whether it will be
any more than that.
Earlier his
month we saw the publication of the Low Commission on Legal Aid. This Report from
the group led by Lord Low makes a number of recommendations. There is a call for
urgent steps to be taken to ensure access to justice for the most vulnerable
especially in relation to housing, debt and welfare rights. Interestingly the
report suggests a £100m fund partly financed by the government and partly from other
sources including a levy on pay day loan companies.
It makes
the obvious, but very important point that voluntary agencies are simply not
able to cope. So will this report make any difference? Sadly I am less than
optimistic. In his December 2013 statement the Chancellor, George Osborne
promised further cuts in public spending with the Ministry of Justice in the
firing line –
Experience
shows that access to justice for ordinary people is low on the agenda for this
government.
But the
government does manage to find money for some rather less useful projects.
The Legal
Agency recently spent £54.3m on an upgrade to its online application and
billing system. The launch of this upgrade has been deferred –
So funds
almost exactly matching the Low Commission's recommendation for the government's contribution
to a Legal Aid Scheme, have just been thrown at an IT system, which doesn’t
seem to be working.
Can anybody
explain the logic?
No comments:
Post a Comment