Embattled Legal Aid lawyers are up in arms over government reforms, but minister Lord Hunt tells Philip Hoult why change is necessary


When Vera Baird QC was appointed a minister in the Department for Constitutional Affairs in May 2006, hopes soared among legal aid lawyers. With her background as a barrister specialising in publicly-funded work, here at last was someone who understood their concerns and problems. Someone who might deliver a more palatable outcome to the government’s controversial reforms.



It was not to be. Fast forward just over a year, and Ms Baird has left the renamed Ministry of Justice (MoJ), promoted to Solicitor-General in Gordon Brown’s first government. Relations between the government and solicitors on the issue of legal aid are arguably worse than ever.



Ms Baird’s successor to a role widely seen as a ‘poisoned chalice’ is Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, a life peer who has previously held junior posts in the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions. He is perhaps best known for resigning over the war in Iraq.



So will matters improve with a fresh face in charge?



The minister is keen at the outset to allay fears that they have already got a whole lot worse. A few days before the interview, the Treasury had announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review that it expected the MoJ to deliver £193 million in savings to legal aid.



That figure came as a surprise to many – after all, the Carter review only identified £100 million in savings. Lord Hunt insists that this is not a new cut, but simply the money ‘that would have been spent if we hadn’t embarked on the [existing] reform programme’.



The new minister is nevertheless quick to repeat the MoJ’s mantra that no more money will be made available. ‘Obviously, we want a very good legal aid system because that is a hugely important component of the kind of society we want,’ he says. ‘But we are living in a world of cash-limited budgets as well, so clearly we have to make sure we do get value for money.’



But surely spending more makes economic sense? After all, numerous studies have pointed to the positive impact early legal advice can have on an individual’s circumstances. And, by extension, on government expenditure in other areas such as health and benefits.



‘I fully understand the argument that up-front, early intervention can save problems downstream,’ says the minister, pointing to his career in health (he was chief executive of the NHS Confederation). ‘Equally, [the budget] is a lot of money and we have got to make sure that it is spent wisely. I know the reforms are difficult, [that] they are controversial and legal aid lawyers are not exactly hunky-dory about them.’



A candidate for understatement of the year, perhaps, but Lord Hunt says he is convinced that the case for reform is ‘very strong’. Best value tendering (BVT), he claims, will create a better understanding of costs and therefore lead to a better judgement on the optimal level of expenditure. ‘At the moment you have just got huge variations, and therefore I think any serious conversation with the Treasury is pretty difficult on this issue,’ he suggests.



The line that there is no more money available might be easier for legal aid lawyers to stomach if they felt more was being done to tackle other cost drivers in the system, ones beyond their control.



Lord Hunt acknowledges this, and claims that one of the key advantages of creating the MoJ is that ‘quite a lot of the elements of the system are within our overall responsibility, although clearly we need to work very, very closely with our colleagues in the Home Office and the Department for Children Schools and Families as well because of their lead responsibility in certain areas... We will be doing everything we can to ensure that other parts of the system also play their part’.



The rollout of the Simple, Speedy, Summary Justice scheme is hailed as a significant success in this respect. Crucially though, the ministry cannot provide any figures for cost-savings through the scheme. If it can specify how much it will save through the legal aid reforms, why cannot the MoJ put a figure on how much it will save through other initiatives?



Whether the government is really committed to tackling external cost drivers therefore remains to be seen. In the meantime, another major criticism of the reforms is that the costs of structural change are being put on firms that are already on a desperately fragile economic footing.



How can partners persuade their banks to continue to support them when BVT could put them out of business sooner rather than later? Why should they bother investing in such a risky environment, for example in trainees?



Is it not embarrassing that the Law Centres Federation and Advice UK have to go cap in hand to City firms to get the £100,000 they needed to replace software rendered obsolete by the reforms? Why did the government and the Legal Services Commission (LSC) reject Lord Carter’s recommendation of a growth and consolidation fund worth £4 million and an IT modernisation fund worth £6 million?



‘As a general principle… it’s not unreasonable to expect the providers of services which are being procured on behalf of the public by the LSC to actually invest in their own improved efficiency and restructuring,’ Lord Hunt insists. ‘I don’t think that that’s being over-demanding. I know that the LSC is looking at ways in which it can assist and help. But hand on heart, I can’t promise any large amount of money for this.’



MoJ officials also insist that the £10 million Lord Carter suggested be set aside was recycled into the fee scheme ‘at the request of the Law Society or with the agreement of the Law Society’ – something which Chancery Lane disputes.



‘For those firms who really wish to be part of the future, and I’m sure that BVT will offer a lot to them, investing in bringing on new people would be essential, I would have thought,’ he says. ‘Of course, individual firms have to make their own individual decisions but clearly legal aid is here to stay, it’s always going to be a large component of our budget, and BVT is designed to ensure that you do have incentives for investing in the long term.’



But what are, for example, criminal defence firms signing up to? One of the major concerns about the six-month temporary criminal defence contract is that firms have not been told what the ‘end-game’ is.



Lord Hunt maintains that the temporary contract stems from the High Court’s ruling in the judicial review proceedings over the unified civil contract. ‘People aren’t being asked to sign up to BVT yet, are they?’ he adds. ‘They are being asked to provide services over a reasonably short period as part of the transition process. And, remember, we were asked for this transition programme; it’s not as if this was plonked on people.’



The minister says that the key consultation paper on BVT should be published shortly. ‘The thing about best value tendering is that it is best value,’ he says. ‘Ten, 20 years ago, public sector procurement was lowest common denominator procurement. It’s very important to stress that the point about best value tendering is that, of course, the issue of cost is an important component, but also quality comes into it.’



Presumably, then, that means the government accepts that prices could go up as well as down? ‘I don’t know what the outcome is going to be but I imagine that you will see variations in different parts of the country and you’ll have a much more market-based approach.’



Lord Hunt maintains that issues such as firms cherry-picking cases will be addressed.



He does not accept that the reforms will lead to a diminution in quality, as predicted by – among others – many peer reviewers. ‘We shouldn’t run away with the idea that you can’t be both efficient and give good quality. My experience in life is that often the most efficient give the best quality because they are organised properly,’ he says.



The minister acknowledges that relations between the government, the LSC and the profession over legal aid are dire. ‘If any government is pursuing what is pretty radical change, it’s not surprising that there will be strains and stresses in a relationship.’ He insists that he wants to make that relationship ‘as constructive as possible’.



So what does he think when he sees lawyers holding national demonstrations? The minister says it is ‘entirely up to members of the profession if they are going to demonstrate’, but he would ‘be concerned if that had an impact in the courts and people’s access to justice’.



But surely this shows the depth of hostility to the reforms among lawyers, when faced with a monopoly supplier creating a structure they believe will put them out of business? ‘The government is absolutely entitled to say this is the way we are going but then to actually try and engage as much as possible with the people affected, remembering that our key concern has to be the customer, the client, the members of the public,’ he says.



Does he accept that some of the hostility has arisen because of the way that the LSC has gone about implementing the reforms? After all, there have been well-documented problems over the original level of fixed fees for family cases, the attempted allocation of duty solicitor slots based on faulty data, and a High Court ruling that the commission had acted unlawfully over the unified civil contract.



Lord Hunt argues that subsequent changes to the family fixed-fees scheme demonstrate that the LSC has been prepared to be flexible. An appeal of the judicial review judgment was, of course, heard by the Court of Appeal last month – the outcome is not yet known.



But the minister shows at least an element of contrition. ‘I’m not going to say to you that everything the LSC does is 100% perfect,’ he says. ‘Equally, I’m sure that you wouldn’t tell me that legal aid lawyers are all perfect.’



The ministry will look to the LSC to be as efficient as possible, Lord Hunt adds, acknowledging practitioner concerns about its own efficiency, and is taking £30 million out of its budget by 2011.



Lord Hunt is also keen to stress that the Law Society and other representative bodies ‘know that they’ve got an open door here’.



Despite these soothing words, there appears to be little difference in approach from his predecessor. ‘All I can do is to make it clear that there isn’t any turning back – we are going to motor on with the reform programme,’ the minister says, ‘but recognising the hugely good work that legal aid lawyers do and wanting very much to work with them in the future.’