The long awaited report from Lord Carter of Coles “A Fairer Deal for Legal Aid” proposes reforms

Thursday 9 February 2006 at 1:06 pm | In News | Post Comment

There would be less money available for criminal legal aid and changes to deal with the “legal advice deserts” where the public are unable to find locally a solicitor to deal with civil cases on legal aid.

The emphasis is on value for money. The report proposes targeting resources on people who most need it, requiring those who can contribute do so and ensuring that everyone has access to justice.

To reduce court time in criminal matters some radical ideas are put forward for example prosecutors to initiate discussions with defence representatives around the point of charge. It is thought that by providing legal advice to defendants at this point will enhance the prosecutor’s capacity to charge accurately from the outset which is hoped to produce early guilty pleas  (the case of R v Goodyear [2005] CA allows a judge to indicate the sentence that might follow a guilty plea).

Competition within the market will determine the rates to be paid for services rather than relying on government to determine these rates centrally. By holding the competitions on a regional basis for volume work it will be possible to pay the rates necessary to ensure supply. In other words the legal aid work will go to the lowest bidder.

In family law it is recognised that there needs to be some changes to bring about improvements outlined in the government’s green paper “Every Child Matters”.

Lord Carter has published his report on a market based reform of criminal legal aid. Lord Carter was asked to conduct an independent review to consider the means by which to deliver the Government’s vision, set out in “A Fairer Deal for Legal Aid”, for procuring publicly funded legal services, particularly criminal defence services.

It is available on the legal aid procurement review website

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