The Public Defender Service (PDS) should continue once the pilot finishes, the head of the Criminal Defence Service told the annual meeting of the International Bar Association.

Addressing the conference in San Francisco this week, Richard Collins said his personal view - after more than two years of the four-year pilot - is that 'I do see a future for the PDS, but clearly as part of a mixed system' that also includes private practice law firms.

He said he envisages the legal aid scheme 'probably having different models of provision'; inner city practices may offer their services in a different way from those in rural areas, he said.

Mr Collins said the principal benefit of the PDS at this stage is that being directly involved in providing services to clients has given him 'a much deeper insight' into the issues facing practitioners.

As an example, he said the Legal Services Commission (LSC) uses the PDS to test the impact government proposals to reform areas of criminal justice would have on the legal aid system.

Even if the key research that is going on alongside the pilot does not make a case for expanding the service, Mr Collins argued the PDS would still be worth continuing if it helped the LSC run the system better.

The commission's budget this year for the eight pilot offices around England and Wales, which employ 65 staff, is around 3.5 million, out of a total criminal legal aid budget exceeding 1 billion.

Mr Collins said the offices were achieving good levels of client satisfaction, while more than 50% of their work comes from referrals or previous clients.

He said these were key indicators of success, adding that the government and LSC never said the PDS would necessarily be cheaper than private practice.

Peter Zahra SC, head of the New South Wales Public Defenders Office in Australia - which concentrates solely on advocacy - said that although his office was more expensive per head than competing private practitioners, anecdotal evidence suggested that it saved the system money overall.

That saving resulted from the office attracting high-calibre and experienced advocates who handle cases more efficiently, leading to shorter trials and fewer appeals.

Mr Collins wants a greater organisational culture in the PDS.

The service offices are currently more like private practice firms in their local areas than like each other, he said.

He is also investigating whether PDS offices can offer clients more than just representation in criminal matters, such as establishing links with drug treatment and mental health programmes, and with the Community Legal Service.

'This would be a more holistic service to ensure they move out of the criminal justice system for good,' he said.

See Editorial, [2003] Gazette, 18 September, page 14

By Neil Rose in San Francisco