Question of choice

CG Blake is wrong in considering that the Criminal Law Solicitors Association (CLSA) rejects the proposed system of salaried defenders for no better reason than impact on its members pockets (see [2000] Gazette, 12 October, 20).

The CLSA maintains that the salaried defence service is unnecessary and will be a gross waste of public funds.

Mr Blake suggests that the government simply wishes to run a pilot scheme to compare public and private sectors with the benefit of knowledge and research.

The government has not chosen to wait until the outcome of the Scottish pilot scheme, from which serious lessons could be learnt.

The government has chosen to propose the pilot scheme in England and Wales at this stage without learning any lessons from the Scottish scheme.

An article in Scotland On Sunday on 15 October (some two months after the publication of the draft proposed scheme for England and Wales) states that a research study has shown that the average cost of a case fought by the Public Defence Solicitors Office in Edinburgh (PDSO) costs 360 compared with 290 to use a high street lawyer.

The PDSO is 25% more expensive than lawyers in private practice.

The pilot scheme has been running for two of its proposed three years.

Given that the main purpose of the pilot scheme was to save on legal aid expenditure, it is difficult to see the point of beginning a scheme in England and Wales in that background.

Nevertheless, Mr Blake can be assured that, if the public defenders scheme gets off the ground in England and Wales, the CLSA will welcome its solicitor employees as members of the association in the same way that solicitor court clerks and solicitors in the Crown Prosecution Service are welcomed.

Sadly, we do not believe that the development of the Criminal Defence Service (CDS) will allow a markedly wider choice of employment for new practitioners, as it does not seem likely that the CDS could afford to employ non-duty solicitor eligible practitioners, bearing in mind the comments made about over- staffing in the consultation document.

Jackie Knights, member of the executive committee, Criminal Law Solicitors Association