I am just recovering from my first attempt at completing the criminal legal aid application forms CDS 14 and 15 on behalf of my client. That these convoluted affairs come with a 22-page guide to their completion, to extract virtually the same information as their predecessors, says it all.

Most of us have now got our heads around the traps in the previous forms (for example, the sneaky little question buried at the end of the old form 15, enquiring whether our destitute client, residing in a hostel for the homeless, might possibly be the beneficiary of an overseas trust). I can only think therefore that the powers that be need to devise new tricks to justify bouncing them back to us covered in red ink.

One is left wondering if there is a secret agenda, to make doing our job so impossible that, in despair, we throw our practising certificates on the fire and, if financially able to do so, retire to look after our grandchildren.

Carol Anthony, Cardiff