Criminal defence to face national crisis

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) has turned up the heat on the government over criminal legal aid work, saying it has 'growing concerns' about its ability to maintain access to justice nationwide.

The warning came in a review of the first year of operation of the public defender service (PDS), during which the LSC encountered the recruitment problems many private practitioners face.

The review said that recruitment of duty solicitors to some of its offices 'was relatively difficult', even though the pay on offer was highly competitive for the sector (50,000 for office heads and 34,000 for solicitors).

'We consider that this reflects a growing shortage of criminal defence solicitors,' it said.

'This is an important matter for us in considering the future of supply of Criminal Defence Service services from private practice suppliers and adds to the growing concerns we have about our ability to maintain national access to these services.'

Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said this was 'an acknowledgement that what we have been saying to them is true'.

Richard Miller, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, said he hoped 'the government listens before it's too late'.

Until April this year, the LSC had not publicly expressed concerns about the legal aid system.

However, chief executive Steve Orchard then went on record with his fears about the impact on publicly funded work of the legal aid pay freeze, while in July, the LSC's annual report found that problems with remuneration and profitability were driving firms out of legal aid and not bringing in young lawyers.

The Lord Chancellor's Department repeated its contention that 'at the moment there is no widespread problem' with recruitment, and pointed to its recent training grant plan as proof that it was looking to the long term.

A statement added: 'We are closely monitoring the situation and will seriously consider the case for increasing remuneration.

But we have to weigh arguments for increasing remuneration against the many other priorities the government has to meet.'

The PDS handled 1,709 matters in its first year of operation at a cost of more than 2.5 million, made up of 1.1 million in set-up costs and 1.5 million in running costs.

While welcoming the LSC's openness in the review, Mr Warren attacked the amount spent on set-up.

The Swansea office cost 254,014, and he said he doubted that there was a single high-street firm in Wales which had similar funds to spend.

An LSC spokesman said they had sought to balance value for money with quality.

The plan is to more than double the PDS's workload in 2002-03 to 3,550 new matters across the six PDS pilot offices, the last of which, in Pontypridd, is scheduled to open this month.

Mr Miller said that even at these levels, the PDS offices would not be operating with a caseload private practitioners would consider to be full capacity.

The review found that Swansea was the busiest of the four offices that opened in the year to March 2002, handling 626 matters and receiving an average of 14 new cases a week.

Half of this work came from existing clients of PDS staff.

The Birmingham office was the quietest, with 274 matters in the year and receiving seven a week.

Only 19% of the work came from existing clients as staff had not in the main worked in the area before.

The Liverpool office handled 482 matters, while the Middlesbrough PDS had 327.

The Cheltenham office opened in April this year.

A Law Society spokeswoman said it does not oppose the PDS in principle, but is concerned that it could undermine private practice firms.

She added: 'The full costs of the PDS must be attributed to its budget and be transparent in any comparison of the cost of services provided by public and private practice.'

Neil Rose