Draft deluge

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) is astonishing.

We have a General Civil Contract (Solicitors) running to 270 pages, where formerly there was none.

We have a manual running to three lever-arch binders, where formerly there was The Legal Aid Handbook - an average-sized textbook.

We have a flow of information; drafts for consultation; guidance as to controlled work; regional reports for review and consultation.

We receive the Legal Aid Focus, published quarterly, often running to 40 or more pages of information about changes to the scheme.

One of my colleagues suggested that the hidden agenda in all this was to drive solicitors out of public funding altogether.

As a solicitor operating within the confines of a clinical negligence franchise, I am a client of the Commission.

As a client, I say that the Commission is quite appallingly designed for its users.

It is extraordinarily bureaucratic and slow.

The bulk of its work is handled by staff who seem to be inadequately trained and who make constant errors.

Its forms may be certified as complying with the standards of clear English, but they are quite beyond the abilities of ordinary clients to complete accurately and completely.

If the criterion for judging an organisation is the extent to which it meets the requirements of its users, the designers of the LSC have got it all wrong.

If all the people employed in writing manuals, contracts and designing forms were transferred to the departments that actually handled applications, perhaps the system would work better.

John Galt, T G Baynes, Sidcup, Kent