Firm claims sex discrimination in legal aid tender
A London firm has claimed sex discrimination in judicial review proceedings challenging the Legal Services Commission’s refusal to award it immigration and community care contracts.
Hereward & Foster issued proceedings in the Administrative Court on 7 September and has requested an expedited hearing.
The firm claims it failed to get contracts because it lost points, as its supervisors work the equivalent of a four-day week.
Partner Deborah Adler said the supervisors are women who had worked full time, but reduced their hours after having children.
She said: ‘We believe that the refusal to issue contracts is a clear case of discrimination, and penalises the firm for implementing family friendly policies.’
‘We believe it unlikely that we are the only firm affected in this way, and would be happy to provide further information to other firms in a similar position. It is also an issue that could affect women legal aid solicitors in future contract rounds.’
Adler said the LSC denies being discriminatory, but has not yet provided a full response to the claim.
An LSC spokesman said: 'We believe we have run a fair and transparent tender process that is non-discriminatory. We take our equalities duties very seriously and published a full impact assessment on the process with our consultation response last year.'
Comments
Bravo, Hereward & Foster!
Perfectly laudable I would say. I wonder if the Commission saw this one coming...
It is also heartening to see a firm saying, in these times, that: ‘We believe it unlikely that we are the only firm affected in this way, and would be happy to provide further information to other firms in a similar position. It is also an issue that could affect women legal aid solicitors in future contract rounds."
I'm with them all the way
Not only is is blatent sex
Not only is is blatent sex discrimination, but flies straight in the face of family friendly working policies to have marked down firms for having supervisors who are not full time - usually because we are women who work around our children rather than give up our careers. The firm where I work as a part time supervisor did not get a contract despite the fact I am on two panels - for the very reason that I am part time. How does the LSC justify this in the light of their statement?
Part Time Community Care
The LSC no doubt thought that they should provide a FULL service to the community and therefore, expected full-time working. It's outrageous! If a woman has children and wants to work part time then to hell with the community who should wait until the following week when someone might pop in between school times.
On the other hand Hereward & Foster might be discriminatory in employing an all women supervisory legal team. There needs to be a gender balance so that when these women go home at 3 o'clock there are others remaining within the firm to do all there work.
Part-Time Thinking
Have you not heard of 'Job Sharing' ? Full time cover but by more than one person. Clever isn't it?
Part-Time Thinking by Ex-Solicitor
I think that 'part time thinking ex-solicitor' is right. The LSC could get someone to work 9 - 10:30 and then 3 - 5pm. That would work, continuity of work effort. It doesn't work. Everyone thinks someone else is responsible and exerts minimum effort until home time. No one has ownership of the problem, very few care; except for themselves and and the service provided to the general public is poor. The only thing 'Clever' about it is the continued pillaging of public funds as a reward for poor performance.
This is not to suggest for one moment that H & F are poor performers. I'm sure they will prosecute their claim with the utmost vigour. My observations are of a generic nature and are in no way gender specific since men with children may wish to spend more time with their children as well.
Full time Part time
Anon you are confusing job sharing with working for a public body. The job sharers work a full day between them and answer to each other as well as the boss/clients.
In a public body, if not off sick, on a course or on leave you are employed full time but work 9-10.30 or 3.00 to 5.00pm and get promoted and a big bonus. Then you leave with an enormous pension.
Do you understand the difference now?
I'm not sure that much of the
I'm not sure that much of the later discussion here, since the issue is over supervision, not the absence of team members able to provide a community service. In practice, supervisors may supervise at all times when they are out of the office, remaining contactable by their team whether they're in court, in a conference or at home.
Ex-Solicitor's limited knowledge
Ex-Solicitor - you really are a case. i assume you are 'ex' as nobody will employ you due to your bigoted generalised assumptions.
As a solicitor that has spent many years in private practice and, more recently, in the public sector i can honestly say that i put in many more hours at the present time. i'm not sure the courts would rise at 10.30 at my request so that i could enjoy a four and a half hour luch break as you suggest. i'm not sure if you've mangaed to keep up with current affairs but it appears to have bypassed you that there is a current pay freeze in force for all public sector workers so that would appear to put pay to your other misguided assertion.
If we are in the habit of making bigoted, unfounded comments i would hazard a guess that a number of 'ex-solicitors' (not you of course) have embellished claims from either the LSC and/or private clients to keep the accounts ticking over but this appears to be 'fair game' or one over on the public or the unwitting client. Think on.
Passing the Parcel
I worked for a local authoruty admittedly many years ago. This required contacting other departments for information.
To while away the hours on hold we played a game to see how many people we got passed to before we got passed back to the first person we had phoned, who then had to deal with the original query.
We were not allowed to encourage transfer, in fact we were to resist it.The usual number was 4-6 but the record was 13.
Try it - and note the reasons given for each person not being able to help.