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Whitehall have just been toying with the idea of a Public Defender Service for over 16 years now. Either give the remaining 5100 Criminal Duty Solicitors a job with the PDS and roll out the project right across all courts in England and Wales, providing a service free at the point of delivery, to everyone or shut the project down. This year £175 million is being spent on administration alone, means testing Legal Aid. Bizarrely that is exactly what it would cost, to pay the 5100 remaining Duty Solicitors, £32,000 a year each. If those in charge cannot make a decision one way or the other, after 16 years of experimentation, should they be in charge of themselves much less the PDS?