Tuesday 17 November 2009

Panorama

The Home Office directs the various Police Forces of England Wales and Northern Ireland as to what they need to do to stay within budget and targets.

The introduction of cautions and of conditional cautions was designed to make the life of the police officer easier (less paperwork); to make the Police Service look effective (statistics) and to control money (to keep The Treasury and Home Office happy).

Now that we are approaching an election it is highly likely that those arrested for offences will be charged to Court only so that the Government can say how tough they are and so the Government can flaunt those figures in its election campaign.

The Police talk a lot about looking after victims and victims rights. They disguise their inadequacies by blaming lawyers, judges and everyone else. The idea that a person can be cautioned for biting a woman or for glassing a man is absolutely ridiculous. Police officers will criticise judges for the sentence imposed without any reference or understanding of the Sentencing Guidelines. Those decisions referred to in Panorama were made by Police Officers. There are no lawyers to blame.

Those Chief Constables and those individuals in Police Authorities who have kept silent and gone along with this fraud should resign. Jack Straw should resign.

The problem is that the Government is not willing to pay the price that real policing and real justice demand. They are quick to seek out measures that appear to offer Justice on the cheap.

The Government knows the price of everyting and the inherent value of nothing.

Each Police area command or Metropolitan borough should have on call 24 hours a day a solicitor/barrsiter prosecutor. That person should approve all disposal decisions.

There should be enough solicitor/barrister prosecutors to ensure that each prosecutor can have at least two days in the office to deal with case papers so that cases are dealt with efficiently and proactively.

There should be less money spent on managers and statistic gathering etc and more on properly qualified lawyers.

Prosecutors and the Police should train together. It is incredible how many Police Officers do not understand  evidence or charging guidelines.

From listening to Police Officers one would think that the CPS, Judges and indeed those who act for Defendants just make up what they do on a whim to frustrate the Police. If they actually knew why decisions were made that they did not agree with, they might actually be better police officers.

The only way to deliver real justice is to ensure that there are enough of the best people working at the CPS. Thinking up procedures to save money that look like Justice is no more than a fraud upon the public and the taxpayer.

Tuesday 3 November 2009

The LSC £millions overspend

You may have read about the NAO's crtiticisms of the LSC about excessive claims by Solicitors in family cases.

It is difficult to explain how this can happen but essentially the system created by the LSC is so unclear that it is possible to genuinely claim one thing when the LSC, later, assess it as another. It is the necessity for after the event checking which shows how poorly constructed the system is.

Fees are suppoosed to be fixed and simple. This is supposed to lead to less administration by the solicitor and by the LSC. This then saves money.

The problem is that the fee system is not simple or straightforward.

Add to this the fact that the reduction in fees paid has meant that more and more work is undertaken further and further down the legal "food chain" because profit has been squeezed out of the legal aid fees system. Senior Solicitors are seeking private clients and moving away from legal aid. Junior staff and secretaries are left to deal with legal aid. There should be supervision and there is, but it is proportionate to the fee paid per case. After all time spent supervising ie checking what someone else has done, is unpaid work and, in the current climate, sitting at a desk not earning fees is just not financially viable.

The Ministry of Justice and the Legal Services Commission demand high quality standards whilst paying minimal fees.

A Solicitor can work 1/3 of the files if paid privately by a client to earn the same amount from legal aid cases. That means a legal aid solicitor operates 3 times the files as a privately paid solicitor to earn the same income.

It is no wonder firms are working out how to abandon legal aid.

"So what!" The taxpayer cries. "It has been a gravy train for too long."

Children will be unrepresented at Court in care proceedings. Contact and residence applications will be argued out by the parents in person. Cases will take longer and cost more. Children and parents will suffer.

Neither the MoJ nor the LSC places any value on the work of Solicitors. All they care about is the price.