In the wider media, legal aid is often demonised, with only two stories tending to predominate. Story one concerns the unworthy, scrounging recipients of legal aid – the clients. The latest high-profile variation on this theme concerns the three MPs in the expenses case.

Story two relates to the unworthy, scrounging, recipients of inflated legal aid fees – the lawyers. Both these stories are, as Gazette readers know, far from the truth, but receiving publicity for a fair and accurate portrayal of what legal aid does is difficult. With this in mind, it was with some trepidation that the Legal Action Group initiated an opinion poll to test the public’s views on legal aid and social welfare law legal advice services. LAG feared that the questions put on our behalf by polling company GfK NOP might meet with a negative response from a public fed the tabloid press mythology about legal aid. LAG was, however, pleasantly surprised by the results, which it hopes will give the government something to think about as it gears up to slash £350m from the budget for legal aid.

Over the summer, rumours leaked that the government was contemplating cutting much of social welfare law (SWL). This prompted LAG to test the public’s views on whether legal advice on the most common types of SWL problem should be paid for by the state. A cross-section of 1,000 people was interviewed at the beginning of last month. What the opinion poll results reflect is the public’s overwhelming view that people on average or below incomes, facing problems with housing, employment, debt and benefits, should be able to obtain free legal advice from publicly funded services.

What was most heartening about this finding was that there was consistent support for it across the population. For example, 82% of people from the highest social class, AB, as against 80% of people from the lowest social class, DE, were in favour of legal aid services being free to everyone or, at least to people on or below average income. Some 43% of social class AB were content to limit these services to such people. Only one in 10 people believed legal aid services should only be available to people in receipt of benefits. Even if they were unlikely to benefit themselves, the results of the poll indicate that the British public believe it is fair that people facing common legal problems should be given a helping hand in the form of state-funded legal advice services. Civil legal help eligibility levels are only just above benefit rates. This means that the reality of the civil legal aid system falls far below the public’s expectations of what the system should cover.

Legal aid entitlementThe LAG opinion poll, which was funded by the Baring Foundation, did not avoid the issue of government spending cuts, since the question of who should be entitled to legal aid made reference to this. Another question asked respondents to prioritise between which areas of law should be funded. Child protection (70%) and housing (67%) rated the highest. Advice on divorce and relationship break-up enjoyed least support (17%), but LAG acknowledges that if a question had been asked about this in the context of domestic violence, the result would probably have been different. Also, any cuts in legal aid cannot be reduced to a popularity contest between different areas of law. LAG recognises that some categories of legal aid work, such as prisoners’ rights, might not enjoy popular support, but are essential to guarantee civil liberties and maintain the rule of law.

A wider set of questions was asked to learn about the public’s experience of using social welfare law advice services and people’s expectations of such services. These questions form part of a larger study which we intend to follow up next year. Perhaps not surprisingly, we found that people in the lowest social group, DE, were most reliant on local legal advice services and were least likely to use telephone and internet-based services. Such services can encourage self-help and act as an important gateway to specialist advice, but the findings of our research suggest they cannot be viewed as a replacement for face-to-face advice.

Overall, we believe the opinion poll results reflect a culture of ‘fair play’ among the public in respect of publicly funded legal advice. A full report on the research will be published to coincide with our conference Social Welfare Law Matters, which takes place tomorrow.

Steve Hynes is director of the Legal Action Group