I have practised in an exclusively legally aided area of law (child care) for more than 20 years. I have experienced franchising, contracting and tailored fixed fees. I and my partners have invested in IT, we deal with the Legal Services Commission on line; we try to be as efficient as we can, because if we do not our business could not survive.

This has been against a background of year-on-year reductions since 1996 in rates of legal aid remuneration, in real terms after inflation, apart from one increase of 15% to reflect panel membership. In addition, we have had to carry out additional work arising from the Human Rights Act and the case management protocol, while this and the previous government have callously and deliberately starved the family justice system of the funds it needs to carry out its statutory obligations.


Unless Lord Carter has had a pay cut, in return for more work, over the past ten years, I think I am more qualified than he to preach about making efficiencies. But I do not suppose, not being one of the great and the good, the government will give me £1.5 million to produce a report containing proven business methods as opposed to untested theories.


It is Lord Carter and this government, not legal aid solicitors, who should be 'a lot more 21st century'. Get real, Lords Carter and Faulkner, and listen to those who do actually know what they are talking about.


Stephen Mannering, Sheltons, Nottingham