Since 2005 when the then lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, commissioned Lord Carter to undertake a review into the future procurement of legal aid, major change has been on the cards.The government has made no secret of its desire to control legal aid expenditure. And the recession has only made that desire stronger, particularly given the £11bn-a-year savings the Ministry of Justice is committed to making.
Criminal defence solicitors may not like the idea that the legal aid budget – and therefore their own incomes – will be reduced, but they could not expect to be shielded from reality.
While the government’s direction of travel has been abundantly clear for a long time, the method to arrive at that destination has been considerably less clear – evidenced by its numerous consultations and proposals such as best value tendering that were announced with great fanfare before eventually being abandoned.
Lord Carter’s solution was a more consolidated market for criminal defence services, with fewer firms, which would cut costs by reducing administration and enabling those firms that remained in the market to remain profitable through economies of scale.
The profession has understandably fought against this idea, because it will see many firms exit the market (Lord Bach predicted the current plans will see 75% fewer firms) and will lead to a reduction in access to local solicitors for clients.
But despite the opposition from criminal solicitors to the majority of proposals put forward by government over the last five years, it is common ground that maintaining the status quo, as Jack Straw said, is ‘not an option’. The government has to save money, and criminal solicitors say they cannot survive on the current legal aid rates.
In this situation, it is futile simply to point out the problems with proposals without coming up with a workable alternative. If you want the to government to listen, you have to come up with a solution, and that is what some of the bigger practices have done.
Smaller firms might feel they have been stitched up by the larger firms collaborating with the MoJ over the current proposals, but it could be argued that the big practices have been proactive – and given a clueless government a viable route map to get to the desired destination.
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