The civil legal aid contracting system has left clients struggling to access social welfare advice from specialist solicitors, while practitioners trying to plug the gaps under general legal help provisions are falling down on quality, according to new research.

The report by legal academics Richard Moorhead and Richard Harding showed that more than one in eight legal aid cases are dealt with under the tolerance system, where firms can offer advice in fields of law not covered by their specialist contracts with the Legal Services Commission (LSC).


It found that although tolerance work may have helped where there was a shortage of specialist providers, the standard of advice clients received was lower; some 42% of clients rated the quality under tolerance contracts as poor. Nearly half of clients were dissatisfied with welfare benefits advice provided under tolerance agreements, compared to 21% who went to specialist contract holders, while debt advice was another problem. In addition, it was rare to find firms accepting tolerance work in areas such as community care, education and employment.


The LSC said it was increasing its scrutiny of tolerance contracts. 'Tolerance work was created for many reasons, including difficulties of access to legally aided advice - especially in rural areas - the need to provide a holistic service and ensuring client choice,' a spokesman said. 'However, access to poor quality advice is not access to justice and sub-standard work must be significantly reduced.'


Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Richard Miller said there was a 'difficult tension' between quality and access, particularly in the fields of debt and welfare benefits, where the volume of cases was often insufficient to make a quality legal aid practice economically viable.


'We would hope that greater use of specialist support services could help to enhance quality while still enabling the client to receive the vital personal touch of face-to-face advice,' he added.