I wish that there was a meeting of minds between Carolyn Regan and myself, but I fear we have a way to go yet (see [2007] Gazette, 16 August, 14; 30 August, 14).


I am pleased that, on the basis of one bureaucrat to another, she and Lord Carter appear to have developed a shared way of thinking, but as will be only too apparent, that does not extend far into what some of us are still old-fashioned enough to regard as a 'profession'.



I am interested that she has found 'several' legal aid providers who think as she does: does she think they can manage to cover the entire country, while several hundreds of experienced quality lawyers quietly leave or go under? It was the constitutional affairs select committee that identified the fragile supplier base that is at such risk through these ill-thought-out proposals.



The problem is, of course, the difference between substance and process. Bureaucratic process is, of its very nature, regular, and as such susceptible to the bean-counting approach. However, the sensitive and dynamic situations in which families involuntarily find themselves when care proceedings are commenced are anything but.



Those of us who have hands-on experience of these matters understand this. Ms Regan and Lord Carter plainly do not. How can they? They have had absolutely no direct exposure to what we are talking about.



I am frankly worried about the quality of those in our profession who are encouraging her to press ahead in a way that they see as consonant with their economic plans to 'stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap'.



It is perfectly possible to employ minions to administer a family's children through care proceedings and into adoption without putting a foot wrong according to peer reviewers. The families I encounter might prefer a scruffy file and the kids back home. Sadly, that is one area of 'choice' that is falling off the agenda.



When I walk though a court waiting area, I know the lawyers I would want packing my parachute if I ever

needed it. Sadly, they are the ones to whom Ms Regan seems determined not

to listen.



Martin Sewell, Gravesend, Kent