Letters to the Editor

BACK DISABILITY RIGHTS

In his article, Roger Smith fails to do justice to the Disability Rights Commission's (DRC) position regarding the possibility of a single equality body (SEB) (see [2003] Gazette, 22 May, 19).

The DRC has a full programme of work ahead.

Current and proposed legislation will take up to 2008 to introduce.

It is important that there is no disruption to this activity - and a badly planned SEB could have dire consequences for this work.

By statute, a least half of the DRC commissioners must be disabled; 11 of the current 15 commissioners are disabled and this gives the DRC enormous credibility with disabled people.

The DRC maintains that if an SEB is established it must be done in a way that will not disadvantage disabled people or other groups.

The federal model proposed by the DRC for the SEB would ensure that disability issues continue to be determined by disabled people, not by those who have no personal experience of disability but believe they can speak and act on our behalf.

If the government proposes to introduce a model that disenfranchises disabled people then the disability community and the DRC would be left with no option but to oppose it.

We would expect to see the protection we seek incorporated into the primary legislation.

Experience in other parts of the world convinces us that unless disabled people have the protection of primary legislation, disability slips down and then off the agenda.

Bert Massie, chairman, DRC

CULTURE CLASH

Your recent article 'Model behaviour' refers to 'vast swathes of the country...

losing legal advice' as legal aid outlets close (see [2003] Gazette, 30 May, 20).

You mention two models for covering the country with outlets for advice instead - interviews in church halls/ community centres or video-conferencing to Citizens Advice Bureaux.What an appalling substitute for the network of high street solicitors' offices, which is being dismantled even more quickly than Dr Beeching managed to destroy the railway network.

A third way would be to retain the existing network of solicitors' offices by streamlining the advice work in each firm as a separate service - both for legal aid clients and for private clients where all they need is advice and assistance short of representation.

The main stumbling block we found when extending our 'advice-only' service to legal aid clients is that the Legal Services Commission (LSC) insists on the same complex, front-loaded, file opening and client-care procedures for casual advice, or intermittent help with cases clients could manage themselves with some support, as it does for a case in which the firm is actually representing the client and taking control of the case.

The LSC also refuses to pay for disbursements, which would enable many clients to act in person, such as the purchase of legal forms, or self-help books.

This means that an 'advice-only service' has to run two different regimes, each undermining the uneconomic viability of the other.

Surely a regime that is good enough for privately-paying clients, (and which appears to meet Lexcel standards) should be good enough for the legally aided? The need to comply with LSC requirements encourages an unhealthy and expensive dependency culture for clients who could manage with a little help.

This diverts resources from the more marginalised who cannot cope and need a solicitor to do it for them.

Peter Browne, Peter Browne solicitors, Bishopston, Bristol

PENSION POSER

I am grateful to Jean Lang for asking me to clarify one point in my article on pension sharing (see [2003] Gazette, 12 June, 19).

I am afraid that constraints of space led me to omit one vital factor from my example about unfunded pensions in payment.

What I had in mind was the situation where there is an unfunded pension in payment and where the recipient of any pension share would not yet have achieved pensionable age; the effect of the order would be to deprive the pensioner of a share of the pension while not benefiting the recipient for possibly several years.

Only the pension fund would benefit.

I agree with what Ms Lang says about unfunded pensions.

Roger Bird, District Judge, Bristol