Scrap telephone gateway
says Law Society as proceedings issued against Ken
Clarke
The Law Society has
urged the government to rethink its plans to replace face-to-face
legal aid with a telephone gateway service following legal action
against the move.
The government's
proposals introduce a telephone gateway where telephone advice will
be given before access to a legal aid lawyer could be
considered.
A group of ten eminent
firms who work in legal aid has now issued proceedings against the
Secretary of State for Justice Ken Clarke over his decision to
introduce the telephone gateway in respect of community care
law.
The Law Society believes
the gateway is looking increasingly misconceived and the government
should think again rather than wasting public money defending a
seriously flawed policy through the courts.
Law Society chief
executive Desmond Hudson said the case for proceeding with the
gateway plan was all but destroyed when the claimed savings from
the move were reduced from 60 million in the Ministry of
Justice November 2010 impact assessment to 2 million
in the June 2011 document. 'Spending money defending this case to
save 2million seems disproportionate,' he
said.
The firms have said such
a system will mean vulnerable people who need legal help may not be
able to get it, restricting access to justice, and have produced
cogent evidence demonstrating that disabled people in particular
are likely to be significantly disadvantaged by the proposed
change.
Evidence from America in
2002 found that vulnerable clients, including many from groups
protected under equalities legislation, were the least likely to be
able to make use of advice provided on the telephone. When taken
together with the minimal costs savings now expected from the
measure, this provides a compelling reason for the Government not
to go ahead with a proposal supported by only 4% of the thousands
of respondents to the Green Paper, and expressly opposed by
84%.
Desmond Hudson
said:
'Analysis of the impact
assessment suggests that even now, the MoJ is probably
significantly underestimating both the cost of implementing the
service and the barriers it will place in the way of vulnerable
clients.'
'Indeed, the available
research indicates that the move to telephone advice may well stop
a significant number of people from getting advice at all, and
deliver worse outcomes for those who do manage to access the
service.
'We urge the Government
to reconsider whether in the light of the evidence now available,
it makes any sense to proceed with this
proposal.”
This year, the Law
Society launched Sound Off For Justice to galvanise public support
against the government's swingeing cuts to legal
aid.
http://soundoffforjustice.org/
Ends
Notes to
editors
Journalists, please
contact Rebecca Kiernan in the Law Society press office on 020 7316
5592
The claimants are: Ben
Hoare Bell LLP, Bindmans LLP, Hansen Palomares Solicitors, Irwin
Mitchell LLP, Jackson and Canter LLP, Julie Burton Law, Mackintosh
Law, Pierce Glynn Solicitors, Public Law Solicitors, Steel and
Shamash Solicitors.
For the claimants the
instructing solicitor is Jo Hickman of the Public Law Project (an
access to justice NGO), and counsel Helen Mountfield QC and
Elizabeth Prochaska both of Matrix
Chambers.
The Claimants are ten
solicitors firms which all provide legal services in the field of
community care law. They have considerable experience and expertise
in providing advice to community care clients and conducting
litigation in this field. They are motivated to bring this claim by
their profound concern that the effect of the mandatory single
telephone gateway will be to deny legal services, and/or timely and
appropriate access to legal services, to some of the most
vulnerable and needy members of society.