Standard

"Legal aid cuts 'disaster' for black Londoners, warns lawyer for Stephen Lawrence's family

20 May 2013

The lawyer for Stephen Lawrence’s family today warned that legal aid cuts planned by the Government will be a “disaster” for black Londoners.

Imran Khan said the £220 million of cuts would send equality “backwards” by leaving ethnic minority defendants struggling to find adequate representation. Justice Secretary Chris Grayling wants to reduce fees for lawyers, under reforms that will also see defendants on legal aid lose the ability to choose their solicitor.

Mr Khan said the changes would make it difficult to take on complex and costly cases, such as the Lawrence murder, which could produce changes that benefit all Londoners. He claimed the new system would lead to large law firms offering “bulk buying” prices that would force many ethnic minority solicitors out of business.

The Holborn-based lawyer, who also represented the parents of Victoria Climbié and the family of Zahid Mubarek, who was killed by a racist cellmate, said: “The future is bleak. Legal aid is not simply about defending so-called criminals, it is also about protecting people’s rights and improving society for everyone… But now it is getting to the stage where lawyers are going to be turning away cases that might be the next Lawrence, the next Zahid Mubarek or the next Climbié.”.................................."

Rest at link below :


www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/legal-aid-cuts-disaster-for-black-londoners-warns-lawyer-for-stephen-lawrences-family-8623319.html

Express

"Top judge warns Government's legal aid reforms could bring meltdown

CONTROVERSIAL plans to reform legal aid will be “absolutely devastating” for Britain’s legal system and result in dangerous miscarriages of justice, a former senior judge warned last night.


By: Marco Giannangeli
Published: Sun, May 19, 2013

Sir Anthony Hooper said judges across England and Wales were “extremely worried” about proposals to auction off criminal defence work to the lowest bidder, which could see the system run by corporations like G4S and Eddie Stobart.

Speaking publicly for the first time since he retired in September, Sir Anthony said: “It is very difficult for serving judges to be critical of Government policies but I can tell you I have spoken with them and they are extremely concerned.

“The purpose of our criminal justice system is to acquit the innocent and convict the guilty. This requires a competent prosecutor, competent defence advocate and competent judge. If you take any of these elements away, the results will be costly and potentially disastrous, with innocent people being convicted and potentially dangerous individuals wrongly acquitted.”

Under the Transforming Legal Aid proposals, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling aims to shave £220million from the £2billion legal aid budget by tendering contracts to 400 firms and mega law shops around the country.

The proposals, which are under consultation, will see people accused of crimes and who cannot afford their own lawyers forced to accept a legal adviser appointed to them, rather than choosing a legal aid solicitor they know and trust.

Those legal advisers will receive single fixed fees to represent clients, whether they plead guilty or not, raising fears that there will be little incentive to conduct a defence properly.

“I’m afraid we are abandoning quality and replacing it with the lowest bid,” said Sir Anthony last night.

“We have already seen what has happened when the Government appointed a single company to provide all the interpreters for courts around the country. It has not worked.

The proposed changes would stop people accused of crimes being able to choose a legal aid solicitor


I’m afraid we are abandoning quality and replacing it with the lowest bid .............................."

Rest at link below :


www.express.co.uk/news/uk/400770/Top-judge-warns-Government-s-legal-aid-reforms-could-bring-meltdown

Growing chaos



Half a million incapacitated claimants await

assessment

Why is this not a national outrage?


The number of people awaiting assessment for the Employment & Support Allowance now exceeds the population of the City of Bristol - the largest in the South West of England according to the latest DWP statistics 494,040 claimants await their assessment.


What makes it all the more unacceptable is that 314,670 (65%) of claimants have been waiting longer than the 13 weeks period provided for within the regulations for carrying out the assessment



Here's how long the DWP are keeping claimants waiting:





The rules only allow for an extension beyond the 13 week period where the Work Capability Assessment (usually conducted by Atos) is not carried out within time or where the claimant is appealing against a decision that they are fit for work.  


DWP figures for the November 2012 quarter show that of 159,900 claimants coming off the Employment & Support Allowance in between September - November 2012 a staggering 92,180 were in the Assessment Phase, the long waiting periods give you a clue as to why, it's also telling that 34,030 of claimants were classified as unfit for work by their doctors (it's a condition of entering the assessment phase in all new claim cases) on the grounds of mental health & behavioural problems - many of them simply can't cope with the prolonged assessment phase. Of those 'exiting' the allowance in the same quarter in the Assessment Phase 70,030 had made no previous claim to the allowance, 16,940 had made 1 or more previous claim and 5,220 had made 2 or more.    


The numbers passing through the Assessment Phase is clearly an escalating problem as shown in the claimant count for the four quarters February 2012




These figures show that each quarter the numbers subject to assessment continue to grow rather than decrease, the numbers 'capture' those in each quarter, illustrating how a substantial size of the claimant count is continually made up of those waiting to be assessment.  When compared with the numbers coming on to Employment and Support Allowance you get an indication of how far behind the DWP is in clearing what is quite obviously a significant backlog:




It's simply not proportional to have an influx of between 125,000 and 150,000 claimants coming on to ESA each quarter (all new claimants enter via the Assessment Phase) with between 424,00 and 494,000 in assessment unless there is a significant backlog or cases which simply aren't getting sorted out.  


If the DWP was anywhere near it's 13 week assessment window with no backlog the number of new entries would more or less equal the assessment phase for the same quarter.  So 125,000 new ESA entries in the February quarter should equal 125,000 in the Assessment Phase - it's clearly not happening with these figures.


The only exception is when a claimant enters straight in to the Work Related Activity Group or Support Group from a previous incapacity benefit conversion claim.  We can partially identify these cases from the DWP data base as follows:


Incapacity to ESA conversions or 'migrations'





The above claimants do not represent the numbers of conversions coming on to ESA each quarter, they represent the numbers who are actually on (which could include some who joined in the same quarter) ESA at each relevant quarter.  What we know (because of the way the ESA rules work) is that all of claimants in the migrated figures who appear in the Assessment Phase are appealing against a fit for work decision.  What can be seen is that number of migrated claimants over the year has risen from 206,210 in February 2012 to 546,880 - an increase of 340,670.  It's a comparatively low proportion of the overall number of ESA entries which comes to 1,143,290 broken down over the same period as follows:



  

Unfortunately the DWP statistics do not enable you to ascertain how many of these on flows are migrated claims but the rise in the migrated claim count (340,670) over the year tells us that backlog of cases awaiting assessment pre-existed the relatively small migration influx. Using the migration claimant count we can work out that during the year 802,620 new ESA claims were not related to the process of migration - you have to ask why so many?


More to come on length of time on ESA and number of claims. In the next section we'll take a look at why so far more new claims are being made than converted over from incapacity.



83.244.183.180/flows/flows_off/esa/ctdurtn/cnclaim/a_carate_r_ctdurtn_c_cnclaim_nov12.html




 

Hello, I'm currently working on a Housing file where the client has been asked to pay a contribution of £70 per month towards his case as his income is deemed too high by the LAA. Unfortunately, he has many transfers into his account from a friedn to buy online credits and they have classed this as income even though we have a statement
to confirm it isn't support to the client...

The clients file is due to be closed soon as the other side have agreed to pay costs.

I was just wondering, as the other side are paying costs will this cover the clients contribution? And is there any way of coming to an agreement with the LAA to postpone charges until the other side have agreed costs? (currently ongoing) The first payment is due on 28th May.

Any help is very much appreciated.

Jade