Coats gets key role at new Legal Aid Agency
Matthew Coats, chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, has been appointed to a key role at the new agency that will bring legal aid under the wing of the Ministry of Justice, the lord chancellor has announced.
In a written ministerial statement setting out governance arrangements for the Legal Aid Agency, Chris Grayling confirmed that Coats (pictured) would be the first director of casework. Under the 2012 Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, the director of legal aid casework is responsible for making independent decisions on whether to grant legal aid in individual cases.
The new agency, will cost £9m to set up. However the MoJ expects to save £17m by 2015 through improved and shared administration processes as well as from an unspecified number of redundancies.
Grayling described its creation as an ‘important step’ for the MoJ in strengthening governance and accountability.
He said: ‘Legal aid is a significant area of public expenditure and it is vital that its administration is undertaken by an appropriate body.’
Over recent years the LSC has come under increasing scrutiny over its ability to administer legal aid. The National Audit Office has qualified the LSC’s accounts for the past four years due to overpayments made to providers.
However some lawyers are concerned about potential political interference in the granting of legal aid under the new regime.
Steve Hynes, director of the Legal Action Group, said: ‘They have set up Chinese walls around the new Legal Aid Agency. The director of casework will have some independence of decision-making but I don’t think that is good enough.’
A Law Society spokeswoman said: ‘The Law Society looks forward to working closely with the Legal Aid Agency to try to ensure that the administration of the legal aid system is as efficient as possible.’
She added: ‘Some concerns have been expressed as to whether the new structure will ensure sufficient independence of decision-making. We will monitor this carefully and highlight any issues that emerge in practice.’
Comments
Legal Aid Abused
Let's hope that the new administration will be more careful as to who it grants legal aid to compared to the woefully slapdash administrators of previous times.
As a small works builder, my experience of the legal aid system was of a crook who got £32,000 of legal aid to enable him to evade a debt of the just £6,173 owed to myself.
Once this amount of public monies had been squandered on the crook I was not to be allowed any chance of winning my claim against him, even though at trial, all of the deceptions that had gained him his legal aid certificates were all rejected by and conceded to the court.
The Legal Aid system was used and abused by all concerned at that time.
Abuse of legal aid
Colin Peters is right.
once a decision is made - and it is rarely unfavourable to the legally aided - then appealing or any other avenue to overturn the decision is futile.
The annouinced cuts brought out of the woodwork how corrupting legal aid has been in the jsutice system - a gaggle[??] of judges came out complaining about it - as well as being the president of the Family Division it turns out LJ Wall was a legal aid campaigner!!!!
Abuse of legal aid
I think I have same concerns about abusing the legal aid towards my self in a court case, while the other parties got a legal aid, while I am paying all my solicitors fees without any legal aid for year and half now, they costing me thousands of pounds, and I am asking where or to whom I should make a formal complaint about abusing legal aid.?
Shouldn't this forum be for lawyers?
Shouldn't this forum be for lawyers?
Should this forum be for lawyers only?
Perhaps this forum should be for lawyers only, if it concerned only their own private funds.
Because legal aid is comprised of public monies paid from the public purse, then surely it is of the utmost interest to those who contribute to the fund: The British Public.
Moreso is it of interest to those of us whose lives have been damaged by those people who have chosen to, and been able to, abuse the legal aid system to their own benefit.
For the contributor who questions where to report the abuse of legal aid, I can only respond with my own findings based on my own experiences.
There are places to report the abuse to.
The difficulty is in finding someone who would listen, and act upon any complaints!
I could not.