Paving the way for access to justiceIn a continuing series, Rodney Warren, chairman of the Law Society's Access to Justice Working Party, discusses its commitment to civil and criminal issues, with particular regard legal aid reform and negotiations over the response to the proposed contracts for criminal workThe access to justice working party was set up in 1999.

Its current terms of reference are to monitor and respond to the implementation of the Access to Justice Act and the introduction of the legal aid reform programme, including contracting.A large part of its work relates to the development and introduction of the Community Legal Service and the Criminal Defence Service and it is at the forefront of providing representation to the profession on these issues.

Matters relating to the reform of legal aid such as conditional fees, quality issues and accreditation issues as they relate to legal aid, are also part of the working party's terms of reference.The membership reflects the fact that the working party has the task of overseeing and developing the Law Society's policy on these issues.

It includes legal aid practitioners from both the civil and criminal fields.

Because legal aid - the Community Legal Service Fund and the Criminal Defence Service - has such a wide remit, affecting the majority of areas of civil practice as well as criminal, the working party has particular interest in the views of specialist practitioners.

For that reason it includes members of other Law Society committees, such as housing, immigration, family, criminal and civil litigation.

The Legal Aid Practitioners Group has a place on the working party as representative of the special interest groups and legal aid practitioners.

The working party also has key links with the advice sector and consumer groups.

This wide range of experience and knowledge brings benefits to the development of the Society's policy on legal aid issues.

The working party meets monthly, with working groups meeting more regularly to discuss and respond to the detail of various consultations and proposals.

At any one time, the working party could be involved in responding to 20 or more individual consultations, including: l Civil and criminal contract proposals;l Public Defender Service proposals;l Amendments to the Legal Services Commission manual;l Quality mark development proposals;l Transaction criteria.One of the working party's main projects over the last few months has been responding to proposals for the implementation of contracts for criminal work.

By the time the Legal Services Commission had published its draft general criminal contract in August last year, the Law Society's negotiating group had already been established to ensure that the final contract would be both fair and workable.

This group, which I also chair, was set up by the access to justice working party.

It included representatives from the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association and the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, as well as others representing pilot firms and sole practitioners.

It was clear that what was on offer fell far short of what could be regarded as a fair and workable contract.

Lengthy and at times difficult negotiations followed between the negotiating group and the commission, and on 8 March this year the Society was able to advise firms that they could sign the contract.

During this period, the working party spent a huge amount of its time discussing the Society's response to the proposals and agreeing the Society's approach.One of the main aims of the working party is to ensure good communication between the Society and legal aid practitioners on the Society's work in relation to legal aid issues.

A newsletter, Dispatch, informs practitioners of proposals and the Society's response to them.

Of late, Dispatch has concentrated almost exclusively on criminal contracting negotiations.

If this has left civil practitioners in doubt about the working party's commitment to civil issues and other more general issues, be assured that it has not lost sight of these areas.The working party will be carrying out a survey of civil practitioners' contracts, to assess the effect of contracting on their business and clients.

We have been pressing the commission for statistical and other information to monitor the impact of contracting and we have pressed for improvements to the contract terms.

The working party has also been taking an active role in putting forward proposals for minimising bureaucracy.

Some of these issues include looking at how forms could be improved, how the number of files requested by the commission at audit could be reduced, and looking at what steps the commission might take to improve its telephone answering service, including piloting the use of e-mails to deal with queries from practitioners.Future work will include responding to the review of the first year of civil contracting currently being prepared by the commission, the development of the quality mark, and continuing to press for unnecessary bureaucracy to be eliminated.