Charities predict rise in homelessness as contracts cut back by 30 per cent
Legal aid cull prompts fears
A legal aid cull will see homelessness rise and people in desperate housing need face problems in accessing help, lawyers and charities have warned.
Last month the Legal Services Commission wrote to providers telling them whether they had been successful in winning legal aid contracts over the next three years to provide social welfare law advice services. Housing advice falls under this category.
The LSC has refused to reveal how many firms received contracts but says it represents roughly a 30 per cent drop on the current position. The number of contracts issued has fallen from 504 in 2008/09 to 468 this year. The LSC has awarded contracts to organisations which combine debt, housing and welfare benefits advice rather than smaller housing specialists.
Lawyers argued that the change will reduce the number of specialist firms operating in the field - meaning vulnerable families will have fewer places to turn. Because there will be fewer providers, there are also concerns people might face a wait to obtain appropriate advice - potentially becoming homeless as a result.
Michael Paget, committee member of the Housing Law Practitioners Association, said: ‘This will increase homelessness and [mean] inadequate safeguarding against local authorities using gate-keeping practices.’
Sue Lukes, associate at housing charity Hact, added: ‘Time is crucial with homelessness. There is a moment you can deal with it and if you miss that time you lose the accommodation.’
Duncan Shrubsole, director of policy and external affairs at homelessness charity Crisis, added: ‘It is important to realise the very real impact on people’s lives that cutting these services will have.’ The LSC said it would fund 100,000 new cases a year in housing.
Sara Kovach-Clark, the LSC’s head of civil policy, said: ‘Fewer providers does not mean less access as new case numbers for housing matters are broadly the same as previously.’ The LSC was unable to say how much the changes would save or how many housing cases it funded in 2008/09.
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Readers' comments (11)
Sidney Webb | 27/08/2010 9:48 am
It simply will not do to have the proles overthrowing the rightful rulings of their masters by invoking the rule of law, thus denying them any rights of access to the law unless they can prove themselves worthy by affording to pay for the legal action themselves.
This of course does not apply to those already with great riches, who of course must still get legal aid to defend, for instance, themselves against allegations of £35M of serious fraud.
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Mr P | 27/08/2010 10:44 am
I'm surprised you're not blaming the solicitors for charging the earth! You've been demanding that private landlords have their incomes capped/slashed, why not solicitors? If they provided an affordable service no one would need legal aid.
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Sidney Webb | 27/08/2010 11:10 am
Pertinent point Mr P, and completely on message.
Because Legal Aid costs are scale rated and expenditure is regularly reviewed through the conduct of the case, the charges are more modest compared to 'open market' hiring of legal advice and representation. In this way Legal Aid does effectively cap a lawyers income from an action. There can be the jealousy argument over the extent of their open market fees, but that is a different issue, and not one I support (I support people earning what they are worth, within a structure of social responsibility and fair taxation.)
The privilage and poverty issue though is one of access. People jump up and down about the enforcement of the Human Rights Act, but you can not get legal aid to fight such an action, even though denial of legal aid to argue your fundemental right to legal aid is against the Human Rights Act. You need to be able to afford to put a 'deposit' of £100,000 and show capacity of funds to that amount again in order to file an action. The only way around this is for a class action or through a lawyer looking to advance themselves on the back of your case.
The basic point is access. Even if a lawyer worked for the minimum wage I could not afford to employ them as my own wage would be needed to pay theirs (and heaven forbid that they should be needed in pairs or work overtime as I do not have access to extra hours even). I do not know your circumsances Mr P (nor do I wish to) but I'm sure your limit on employing a fully qualified experienced professional with Bar experience at even £40 per hour (dirt cheap compared to a doctor or other equivalent professional) would prohibit your access to the law for other than the simplest of cases.
Successive governments have restricted access to the law through the limitation of legal aid. In typical elitist spin they use the excesses of the super rich using legal aid to further their rights as an excuse to make these cuts, but they never cut the access to legal aid of such people. The Law Lords, landed gentry even, have argued that access to legal aid to the poorest in society is virually nil and that this is likely to cause an underclass, and the potential for civil unrest. Yet, the representatives of the people, those we elect to speak for us, continue to legislate against our interests.
Unless society wishes people to take the law into their own hands it is essential to give people access to the law.
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Anonymous | 27/08/2010 11:14 am
Exactly, Mr P.
This smells of sectional well-paid interest dressing up in handy moral righteousness for base concerns.
The legal aid rate for this advocacy is £70 an hour and the boys and girls in black know how to work the clock to double and triple the rate.
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| 28/08/2010 6:14 pm
Something had to be done about legal aid. We've had cases here of some real scum who had turned their council blocks into ASB nightmares with their behaviour getting suspended possession orders and then going straight down the Mary Ward centre in order to get a fat cat barrister (specialising in defending the indefensible) on board for free to get it set aside in court. And promptly continue with their behaviour. Evictions are costing far too much in both time, money and energy and these taxpayer funded organisations handing out legal aid money to overpaid lawyers are a major contribution to the problem...
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Winston Smith | 29/08/2010 1:27 am
"I fought the Law and the Law Won"
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Winston Smith | 29/08/2010 1:37 am
What about if you are falsely accused of a crime which you have not committed, and you are deprived of access to legal advice and subsequently (so called) legal aid?
Unscrupulous housing association's are loving the power they have over their Tenant's whom they can terrorise, harass and bully out off their homes, with absolutely no fear of the Tenant receiving any legal protection, (I should know as have experienced this at first hand).
In this country once you are labelled you are as good as dead.
Some people on this forum should experience injustice for themselves before making indefensible crass comments.
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| 30/08/2010 7:33 am
It's all about striking a balance isn't it? The pendulum swings both ways. Under NuLab the only thing that appeared to be of any importance was the "rights" of the scumbags to be scumbags without any interference from everyone else. It was all very well for Bottler Broon to start banging on about there being responsibilities as well as rights but nothing was ever done as the pendulum had swung too far. Providing you were a permanent welfare case, you were free to access the services of extremely well paid lawyers to defend any action that your landlord could bring against you for terrorising your neighbours. An entire infrastructure of State funded "advisors" had sprung up to help you do same. Even a deep pocketed local authority was disadvantaged in court as the burden of proof is so great, and the competence of their legal staff so poor (coz if they were any good they would be in private practise wouldn't they?) that massive injustices were a daily occurence and nightmare neighbours were free to destroy their communities without interference from the State. The process had become so tortuous and so costly that the LA/RSL just didn't want to know. Witness the Pilkington affair. The inevitable consequence of the system...
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nicolas goss | 31/08/2010 8:06 am
there is some confusion in the above comments between legal aid which is paid at £70ph in london and legal help which is paid for homelessness in london at £54.15ph increasing to £62.40 ph bin relation to review of a homelessness decision. simplistically speaking, Legal aid only applies to an appeal on apoint of law to the county court or above. very few homelessness cases go to a legally aided appeal to the county court. the courts esp in priority need have abandoned oversight adn sh ocking cases are found to be not in priority need.
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Sidney Webb | 31/08/2010 11:02 am
Nicolas - I think the confusion comes from tenants seeking advice from housing advice centres which ahve access to public funds, and can access the fixed fee interview element of legal aid. Posters seem to not realise that with the mass privatisation of housing such access to legal advice will become more essential as tenants get to grips with increasingly complex legal tenancy agreements from private capitalists wishing to maximise profits. Failing to be legally advised, just as througha conveyance, exposes the individual to substantial financial risk.
On the point in general, access to the law has been successively reduced as legal aid has been removed from the traditionally poor areas of legality. This proposal is of the same ilk and threatens to prohibit access to the law by those without means even more greatly. Access to the law has been a fundemental British right regardless of standing since before the Norman invasion. It is sad to see this so diminished. It is sader still that the self-appointed Brit supporters are howling for access to be further reduced. Perhaps, when they needs to access the law and can not afford to they will develop that useless tool of hindsight.
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